


Tip the Scale

by volleydorkscentral



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (more like SELKIES though), Alternate Universe - Merpeople, M/M, TW: Drowning (but no one dies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24715252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volleydorkscentral/pseuds/volleydorkscentral
Summary: As a child, Akaashi almost drowned, but something--someone--saved him. He never really believed what his dreams and memories told him about what happened that day. Only... one day his savior reappears to change his life.Eyes the color of the sun stared at him from underneath the waves. The eyes were the same color as the little scale that bounced on his chest—the one he’d been clutching after the accident—the one he’d carried with him his whole life. The face was as familiar to him as his own—only now did he realize that he’d seen it following him his whole life, catching glimpses and flashes of it and the wide, curious eyes that watched him.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 54
Kudos: 194





	Tip the Scale

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote myself a selkie!au for my own birthday. ヾ(๑╹◡╹)ﾉ"
> 
>  **Trigger Warning:** Twice there are instances of near-death/drowning. No one actually dies, though.

The ocean was a constant in Akaashi’s life. The small town he lived in had canals filled with saltwater instead of streets, small boats instead of cars, and the sound of the waves roiling and rolling along the beach was the rhythm of his heartbeat. As a child he liked to wander the shores, digging up the tiny clams on the shore, filling a small bucket so full he—as a child of only five—could barely carry back to his house for his mother to make chowder and other delicious dishes. He would collect the prettiest shells and save them in jars to decorate his room with or string them together to make shell curtains for his windows. He would spend all day on the beach, playing in the foamy surf or building tiny forts that he would then stomp down, the master of the tiny universe he’d built.

One day when the sun was high overhead, burning white-hot down onto his neck, he had moved deeper into the water than he knew he was supposed to. But it was just _so hot_ that day, he wanted to cool off in the water. Then he saw a whole conch shell gleaming pink and white and dusted with dark brown spots. He knew it would make a beautiful centerpiece in the seashell miniature city he was building in his room, but the waves were pulling it deeper into the ocean with each rise and fall. Even though the water was lapping at his hips now, jumping up to smack his stomach as it rushed to the sands, he pushed on deeper into the water, eventually having to hop and paddle to keep his head above water. He knew he could still swim back, he was a strong swimmer, so he wasn’t that worried. Finally, after chasing the shell too far—he knew it was too far—he managed to get a foot on it, catching it and holding it captive.

Sucking down a breath, he plunged underwater, reaching down to find the shell under his foot and plucking it from the sand—but as soon as he did something soft and slimy slithered across his fingers and he let out a shriek that sent a cascade of bubbles floating up around his face. He dropped the shell and it smacked against his foot as it sunk to the bottom and he twisted away, frightened, confused, lungs already protesting the lack of air. He’d been so stupid—forgetting in his excitement that actual animals lived inside the large, beautiful shells. He looked upwards, finding the sun, and pushed himself up towards it, breaking the surface and sucking down air just as a wave rolled in—it threw him, tumbling and falling, back underwater.

Dizzying, foam and bubbles caressing the skin of his face, saltwater stinging his eyes. Each time he almost found the surface another wave rolled over him, sending him plummeting back into the calamitous current that was dragging him out to sea. He couldn’t find the sand with hands nor feet. The light that filtered in through the water was a burst of beams, confusing and disorienting—up and down weren’t concepts he could figure out.

His lungs were screaming for air, but he couldn’t find any. He flailed, struggling—he knew how to swim! Why couldn’t he find the surface? He screamed, frightened, but no sound emerged—tried to breathe even though he knew it was impossible. Water burned his throat, filled his lungs. It only made him sink faster. His limbs wouldn’t work—he couldn’t swim. No reason to try. Couldn’t find the surface. 

He was so cold.

Closing his eyes, stomach heavy, knowing that if his mother found out how stupid he’d been, she’d be angry.

His back scraped along the sand, but when he opened his eyes the sun—air, life, warmth—seemed so very far away. Something else was closer—sparkles of gold that didn’t make sense—looking at him with concern.

_Are you coming?_

Akaashi closed his eyes as the last of the air left his lungs. Tiny bubbles tickled his nose as they escaped. He felt himself dying before he really knew what death was. He didn’t want to die like this. _Please_.

* * *

Gasping, Akaashi surged awake, having to press his hands to his face and curl over his legs to slow his breathing and racing heart. That dream—memory—again. The same one. Every year around the anniversary—every year for twenty years—he would start having this dream again. Turning to look out his window his bed was tucked against he saw that the sun wasn’t even awake yet, the sky was the soft gray light of pre-dawn. A gentle breeze blew in off the water to cool his sweat covered brow and he let out a breath of a sigh. He wouldn’t be going back to sleep now.

So he slid out of bed, stretching a little to soothe tense muscles after the dream. Sometimes he wasn’t sure if it was a dream or a memory, and even the cool press of the scale against his chest—ghost-like memory of hands on his arms, pain in his chest, water rushing out of his lungs as he choked and spluttered—couldn’t convince him somedays. He pulled the small chain from under his shirt and ran his thumb over the little gold scale that he’d been clutching when he’d finally awoken on the beach all those years ago. Logically, he knew that the ocean had just deposited him back on the sand and, in his hazy, half-unconscious state, he’d crawled to safety, coughing up seawater the whole way until he could desperately suck down oxygen.

He’d never told anyone about it, and he’d kept the scale hidden his entire life. Only once his father had passed—only two years ago, a decade after they lost Mother to illness—had he transferred the scale from a hidden space he’d carved out in his desk drawer to a chain around his neck, keeping it close to his chest even while he slept.

After he’d made his bed and pulled the window shut, he went downstairs to the kitchen still decorated by his mother’s hand and made a small, simple breakfast and took it out to the small patio overlooking the bay. He sat and ate, watching as the sun slowly began to peek above the horizon, spreading its fingers out to open up the sky and dipping into the water. The town was built around the edges of the bay, making a half-circle on the land. The docks and walkways built over the generations nearly closed the circle, except for an opening that allowed boats to come and go from the open ocean. From his balcony, tucked against the curve of the crescent, he could see most of it. He spent each morning overlooking the ocean, no matter the weather.

“Good morning,” he said to the water as he set his bowl down, breakfast finished. “I dreamed of you again last night…” His eyes scanned the long curve of the beach. When he was a kid that was the way he walked to get to—what he thought of as— _his_ beach. His secret beach. Most people didn’t go that way, and in all the years he’d been going back to the beach he’d only ever seen a handful of people, and never for long. He remembered walking home that day after the accident, feeling the sun drying all that saltwater on his skin and making his hair stiff, his skin too small for his body. When he’d made it to the docks where his father worked he’d told his father that he’d simply fallen in the ocean, then he’d gone home and his mother had doted on him and he’d been able to take a long, hot bath to soothe his still-shivering body.

To the ocean, he said, “I’ll be there soon. Will you come?” He had no idea who he was talking to, and most days he pretended that he didn’t constantly think of the ocean—of his savior—as a friend, someone to talk to. And that he _did_ talk to it, all the time, out loud or in his heart. The sound of the waves felt like an answer, a resounding _come back to me_.

He went inside, cleaned his kitchen, going through the quiet routine of packing lunch and tidying up he had each morning before he descended to the lowest floor to the little dock underneath his house where he kept his small maneuvering boat for traveling through the town. It was an easy, almost natural thing to push the boat into the water and guide it across the bay towards the gathering of long, low buildings, one of which housed his workshop.

Once inside, the familiarity of the place immediately made some of the anxieties of his dream fade away. As he walked to the back of the shop—the sweet scent of the wood floating all around him—he ran his hand gently along the current boat he was working on, ducked around the assembling planks for another half-finished smaller craft—waiting, frustratingly, for the payment to come through from a client before he finished it—and paused to touch the framed photograph of his parents he still kept hanging at the back of the shop.

When he opened the big sliding door at the back the sunlight came spilling in along with a breeze from the ocean. Woodgrain floated like tiny stars in the light, and the lapping of the water against the edge of the ramp was another little thing that brought him joy so that the darkness of his dreams receded even further. He’d learned how to build boats from his father, and had carried on the tradition of making them by hand, even though he liked to experiment with materials and designs that weren’t quite traditional.

He made specialty small crafts for clients all around the country after a visiting minor-celebrity from two cities over had seen the elegant, twisting motif he’d carved for the town’s entrance, and the small statues he’d made for the restaurants and businesses that sat like protectors near the doors. The girl had asked him for something for her house, a memento of sorts, but he’d informed her that mostly he made small fishing boats, and the statues had all been gifts or he’d made them to practice woodworking and that he wasn’t doing them any longer. She’d still wanted to see his workshop and, begrudgingly, he’d given her a tour and allowed her to take photos of his finished works, not knowing that she’d post them online along with his shop’s name and contact information. Since then, he’d had a small but steady rise in business. He made good money from his boats, even if some of the neighbors said he should be charging more—just not to them; _a favor for an old friend, yeah? You’re just like your father, y’know?_

He took special care with each of his projects, even the smallest ones—even the tiny toys he’d made some of the children in the neighborhood—because he wanted to live up to his father’s reputation, up to the one that he himself had been building for six years. He knew that the sea could be cruel as it was beautiful, the final arbiter of his work, and if he failed people who’d trusted him could be hurt, so he always tried to make sure that each tiny detail was addressed, every centimeter of the project touched by his fingers, seen by his eyes, tested by his knowledge so that it wouldn’t fail. He’d spent years watching his father work, learning from him in a silent, consistent way that made Akaashi appreciate the work that went into each cut of the wood, sometimes sneaking into the workshop at night with a candle to try and learn things from the hidden language of boats that he only understood part of at the time.

As the sun rose higher he worked hunched over a long plank he’d carved last week, sawing fine, thin seams into the wood that he could use to fit the planks together; his foot hurt from having accidentally kicked a block of wood that he’d not properly moved out of the way; he knew there was a bruise forming already. He took his lunch to the boat ramp at the back of the shop where he’d push finished crafts out to sea and around to the docks for his clients to take away, out into the world. Kicking off his shoes, he ate his lunch with his feet dipped in the crisp water. The ocean itself wasn’t ever warm, but here in the alcove of his workshop, it was downright chilly, perfect for soothing his aching feet.

Sometimes, when he was this close to the ocean, the scale pressed against his chest felt cooler, too, or warmer—he didn’t know. Couldn’t tell. Both at the same time. He never took it out in public, afraid that someone would see it for the lie that it was and it, and his entire fantasy of all it represented, would vanish and crumble around him. Usually, on the anniversary of his accident, his mind was filled with the past. While his father had been alive, he’d dated several local girls—and one not so local, which had been a disaster—to appease him, to try and make him happy in the final years of his life, because he always worried about Akaashi being happy.

“You need to find a wife,” his father had said to him. “My happiest days were with your mother. I just want that for you.”

But none of the girls were right. He liked them, they were pretty and kind, but he didn’t love them. And one of them, while breaking up with him, had said, “I think you love the ocean more than me,” and he hadn’t been able to disagree because it was true.

Then, after his father had died, he’d finished the things he was supposed to, observed the rites and rituals, then his friends had brought him to the city for almost a month, playfully telling him they were ‘kidnapping’ him to show him the real world. He was the only one that had decided to stay in their small town instead of moving to the city for school or work, and his friend Kuroo had taken him to look at apartments and universities, parks and bars, all in a futile attempt to convince Akaashi to move there permanently.

“You can’t stay there your whole life,” Kuroo had told him while they sat opposite each other at a tiny restaurant, sipping beer and letting the recent meal settle in their stomachs.

“I’m happy there.”

Kuroo had leaned close to look at him, studying him with his intelligent, cool gray eyes. “Are you?”

Akaashi hadn’t been able to meet his gaze for long, instead looking out the window at the neon signs and the lights of the buildings opposite them, the hoards of people streaming past, huddled as they were under umbrellas against the deluge from the sky. “I’m trying to be.”

“Why don’t you stay with me? You can find a job—”

“I have a job.”

Kuroo had sighed, shaking his head. “You were born in the wrong century.”

“I was not,” Akaashi protested, frowning at him. “I just like the town, is there anything wrong with that?” Truth be told, the rush and hurry of the city often gave him headaches, and made him sick to his stomach the longer he was away from home. It drained him to leave home, and he never felt truly whole until he was back and his feet had touched the waves again. He liked the hush of their hometown and the quiet that he felt in his heart while there. It was so far out of the way that most cell phones barely worked, anyway, and his wi-fi connection for his laptop—that he used for research, mostly, or when he couldn’t find the answers to a boat building question in a book—was spotty at best. He knew he was one of the youngest adults to still live in the town, reflected by the fact that most of the people he spoke to on a daily basis were small children still living with their parents—but dreaming big dreams of a life far away—and his parents’ old friends, most of them old enough to remember things first-hand Akaashi had learned about in history class.

With a Cheshire grin, Kuroo had pointed at him. “Where’s your phone?”

“Cell phone?” Akaashi had patted his pockets but remembered where it was almost immediately. “At home.” He paused, frowning as Kuroo’s smile widened even further. “On my computer desk, I think.”

“Precisely,” Kuroo said. “At _home_. Not my house. Your house. You didn’t even bring it with you.”

“Why would I?” Akaashi asked, annoyed, and sipping his drink. “I only ever talk to you and I was coming to see you, anyway.”

“You’re supposed to”—Kuroo waved his hand extravagantly—“play little games on it! Or scroll mindlessly through social media while you travel. Or take selfies. Use it to read or in case of an emergency. Do you even _have_ a Facebook?”

“There wasn’t an emergency—it was just a long, boring car ride.”

“Exactly. Boring. That’s what cell phones are for! To ease the boredom.”

Akaashi had scoffed. “Phones are boring to me. And, yes, I do have a website. It’s for my workshop.”

Kuroo rolled his eyes but was smiling even as he shook his head in disbelief. “You were born half a century too late,” he repeated.

On that same trip, Akaashi had met a man that had actually intrigued him, and they’d struck up a quick and easy conversation about little things, silly things, small talk that didn’t feel small. Kuroo had done all he could to encourage this, and for the rest of the trip, he’d set up dates and planned outings so that Akaashi and the man could get to know each other. Akaashi wasn’t sure if they were dating or not, but when he’d gone home they’d kept in touch—it was the most Akaashi had used his phone in years.

And then, it had come to an end. The man had come to visit Akaashi after several weeks where Akaashi had come up with one excuse or another to not visit the city again, and they had a long, eventful weekend where they’d not left the house much. When they did, however, the man had found his hometown lacking, wanting, and had been bored when they weren’t in bed together. He’d asked Akaashi if he would come back to the city with him (“Come to the modern era!”) and move in so they could be together, but Akaashi hadn’t even considered it before saying no, and that maybe they weren’t right for each other, after all.

A gull squawked as it flew past, and Akaashi looked up (ignoring the flash of gold and silver at the corner of his vision—the splash that he refused to hear), realizing that he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts again. He’d finished his lunch ages ago, mindlessly, not paying attention, and his feet were numb with cold. With the time he’d lost he knew he’d have to hurry if he wanted any chance of finishing his planned work today.

* * *

Akaashi rushed home earlier than usual, but later than he’d planned. He wanted to get out to the beach before it got dark so he didn’t have to set up his small camp in the dark. It took him half an hour to make provisions—dinner, or breakfast if he didn’t catch anything to cook—and double-check his already-packed bag, before he was back in his boat and pushing out toward the sea.

The route was as familiar to him as the backs of his hands, and his hands moved the oar by habit. The sun was sinking low, the sky orange and pink and purple, every color in between, and he kept eying the sunset and the coast as he moved to the little beach, anxious to get there with the light still left. There were rocks he had to move around—most of them easy to spot jutting out of the water even at high tide—to reach the beach. If his boat crashed on the rocks and sank, he could walk back to town, but he didn’t want to.

As soon as he made it past the rocks he leaped from the boat and dragged it up on shore far enough that it wouldn’t be dragged back into the water. He’d been camping here every year, so it was an easy thing to set up his small camp—gathering stones to lay at the edges of his small fire-pit, setting up all the coal and tinder he’d need for a fire, staking down a mat beside it that he could sleep on protected from the grit of the sand—before stripping his shirt and shoes and rolling up the legs of his pants so he could stand in the waves.

Somehow, here, where he’d almost died, was where he felt most alive. He could breathe easiest, inhaling the salty scent of the water, the seabirds circling overhead, the sun sinking almost completely into the ocean and the moon rising steadily from the east. It was a full, fat summer moon tonight, and Akaashi thought that if he’d not needed the warmth he might not even need a fire. The waves tugged at his ankles, caressing up his calves. The ocean wanted him to come back.

He wouldn’t swim again—he’d never stepped in the ocean further than his knees since his accident—but he moved around to a large outcropping of rock that jutted out into the water. He sat at the edge, happy that his inside felt as calm as the gentle lapping of the ocean underneath him. Only here did he feel … calm, happy, serene. He could sit and soak in the moonlight, trying to bottle these feelings to keep him sane until the next time he could come.

There was a sound, suddenly, that was different than what he was used to. He knew it was wrong, the ocean didn’t splash like that. Akaashi leaned over the jagged edge of the stone, searching the water. The moon was low over the ocean, sending glittering silver and white streaks across the surface. If he looked past the reflections of the sky he could see… gold. Eyes the color of the sun stared at him from underneath the waves. The eyes were the same color as the little scale that bounced on his chest—the one he’d been clutching after the accident—the one he’d carried with him his whole life. The face was as familiar to him as his own—only now did he realize that he’d seen it following him his whole life, catching glimpses and flashes of it and the wide, curious eyes that watched him.

Almost in a trance, Akaashi pulled the chain over his head and held the scale out, dangling over the ocean, almost as an offering. His brain wouldn’t form proper thoughts.

The eyes widened and surged upward—Akaashi could see silvery hair, broad shoulders, the flash of scales reflecting the moonlight. Then, slowly, a hand reached up out of the water, fingers sliding over Akaashi’s wrist. They were cool and a little rough, and Akaashi knew he should probably be scared, but his heart jumped in his chest, everything in his body fluttering and tingling with excitement.

Then the creature moved up and emerged from the water. The gills on the side of his throat sank into his skin and he gasped a little, pulling down air through his mouth. He was beautiful and alluring, graceful as he held his body in the air, not even having to hold onto Akaashi’s hand for leverage. His eyes were even more beautiful up close, filled with the molten gold that had frequented his dreams and fantasies since he was a child. The man—for he was, absolutely, a man, the strength of his arms and chest were making Akaashi’s mouth water—watched him for a long moment, then leaned over his hand, sliding a damp finger up and down his arm, tracing the veins in his wrist. His hair, the same color of the moonlight, fell in his face, plastered to his forehead, but he didn’t seem to mind. He pulled Akashi’s fingers open to reveal the scale that sat in his palm.

“You kept it,” the man said, and Akaashi was so startled he nearly fell off the rock. His voice warmed places in Akaashi’s body that he hadn’t known were ever cold.

Akaashi could barely speak. “Yes. Of course. All my life.”

The man smiled at him and closed Akaashi’s fingers around it. “Keep it safe.” Something about him begged Akaashi to dive in after him, to share the water, to wrap himself around this creature and never disentangle from him. His heart ached with desire, something in his gut practically clawing its way towards the man.

Glancing down, Akaashi could see that the man—creature—had a lower body filled with gold, black, and silver scales: a long, elegant body that would be perfect for gliding seamlessly through the water; he had slim, lovely fins on either side of his hips, and a great, wide fin at the end that made Akaashi think he could outpace even the fastest ship. There were straps around his hips that held what looked like swords or knives—some sort of weapon—and Akaashi had a thousand and one questions—was he a hunter, did he have to protect himself, did he ever fight with other creatures like him?

“I will,” Akaashi said softly. “It… looks like you have a lot, though.”

That made the man smile and he pulled something off his belt, setting it carefully on the rock between them. He inched backward, raising his eyebrows as he looked between the bag and Akaashi. When Akaashi didn’t move he said gently, “A gift.”

Akaashi blinked. “For me?” The man nodded and Akaashi reached out and picked it up—it was soft and wet, and Akaashi realized it was made of woven kelp. It took him a few moments—nervous because the man was watching him with wide, excited eyes—to figure out how to untie the top. Once undone the bag seemed to fall away and he was left holding a soft pink and creamy conch shell, sans mollusk this time. He gasped in delight, running his fingers over the bumpy curve of it, the smooth inside, following the curve of the white that snaked around the shell. “It’s beautiful, thank you,” he said, feeling the smile stretch his face.

The man pushed himself up a little, reaching out to touch Akaashi’s cheek and leaving little streaks of cool water on his face. “It’s from when we met.”

“From—” Akaashi looked down at the shell, his heart clenching a little.

“It’s what you were chasing, right? I’ve wanted to give it to you for a long time.”

“I… y-yes. You’ve kept it all these years?”

The man touched the scale necklace with a finger, smiling. He glanced over his shoulder, gazing at the ocean as if searching for something before returning his attention to Akaashi. “Who are you? I’ve wanted to know your name ever since that first day.”

“My name is Akaashi… Keiji. You can call me Keiji.” He looked up, held his gaze, the breath in his lungs suddenly burning in a pleasant way.

The man leaned forward to touch their foreheads together, never taking his gaze away from Akaashi’s. Seawater from the man’s hair dripped into Akaashi’s, droplets sliding down his temples. Akaashi almost reached out to wrap his arms around his neck to kiss him. Finally, the man said in a whisper, “My mother calls me Koutarou.”

“Oh…” Akaashi breathed out a sigh. It was a name that sounded familiar to him like it had already been written on his heart, but he’d just lacked the understanding to read it.

Koutarou was smiling at him, but he turned to look over his shoulder as if something in the sea was calling out to him.

“A-Are you hungry?” Akaashi asked suddenly, trying to keep his attention.

“Hungry?” Koutarou looked back at him, flashed him a smile. He pulled Akaashi’s wrist to his lips and kissed it—a cool imprint that tingled on his skin—then turned and flipped back into the sea, vanishing with a flap of his golden tail and splashing Akaashi for good measure. His heart sank all the way to the bottom of the ocean as he watched Koutarou vanish in the dark waters. Akaashi almost didn’t believe he was real. If it weren’t for the cold imprint of lips on his wrist and the firm weight of the conch shell in his palm he’d have thought he had hallucinated. Sitting back on his heels, he stared at the shell, wondering if he’d ever see the man again. He was so handsome, so beautiful, so exotic that it took Akashi’s breath away. Now he was gone.

Akaashi slid away from the edge, rubbing his hand over his face, dropping the chain back around his neck. Maybe he was dehydrated. It’d been a long time since he ate, too. Maybe he needed to eat and drink some water. Just as he was turning to go back to his camp, however, there was a splash, and when he looked back Koutarou was there, holding himself out of the water with one arm and clutching a long, slithering mass in the other.

He’d caught an eel.

“Oh my god,” Akaashi whispered, staring at him and the writhing eel he held out to him. He shook his head, too stunned to speak.

Koutarou cocked his head, then slid his body onto the rock so he could use both hands and begin uncurling the eel from around his fist. Akaashi stepped closer to see the man in full profile: the scales on his tail seemed to change colors, gold to black to silver and back again as he shifted, balancing on the rock. Then Akaashi nearly screamed, having to clap his palm over his mouth to stifle it, as the man bent his head and bit a chunk out of the eel just beneath its head.

When he looked up, he had pointed teeth and was licking pale, pink blood from his lips. He offered the dying fish up to him but Akaashi was too horrified to move. “Do you not want it?” Koutarou asked, looking worried. His tongue poked at his teeth—which had _not_ been shaped like a shark’s earlier.

“I—” Akaashi struggled to control the tremor in his voice. “I can’t eat them… like that.” Then, to clarify because he didn’t seem to understand, he said, “It’s poison to me if it’s not cooked.”

“Cooked…”

“Yeah,” Akaashi tried not to watch as blood oozed out of the wound and over the man’s fingers. “Like with fir— Oh. You wouldn’t have fire. You… do you eat all your food like that?”

“Like what?”

Akaashi opened his mouth, then shook his head. “Just— wait here. Please. Don’t go.” He held his hand up, and after watching him for a long, tense moment, Koutarou nodded. As Akaashi hurried back to his camp he heard the tell-tell crunch of bones and glanced over his shoulder to see Koutarou chomping on the fish—head, bones, and all. He had to compose himself as he carefully set the conch in the sand beside his mat, wanting to keep it safe. He dug out the provisions he’d made for dinner, and, once he was sure Koutarou was done eating—he could _not_ watch that again—returned to his side. “This is one of the things I eat. Rice balls. There’s salmon in it.”

“It’s not fish.”

“Not the outside, no.” After checking that his hands were clean, he pushed it to him, and when he took it Akaashi sat beside him, leaning close. Koutarou smelled of the ocean, of fresh fish and brine, something sharp and visceral and evocative.

Koutarou frowned at the tiny ball of rice cupped in his palm. With some prompting from Akaashi, he took a bite of it, eating over half of it in one huge bite. His sharp teeth were gone—Akaashi wondered where they went, but didn’t know how to ask without being rude. He chewed slowly, his eyes widening as he stared at Akaashi, which made them both laugh. Stunned, Akaashi had to think back, wondering when the last time he’d truly laughed had been. Weeks, maybe. Months. Within minutes in the presence of this beautiful creature, he’d laughed in a way that hadn’t been false.

“Do you like it?”

Koutarou nodded happily, then held up the rest of it for Akaashi to have. He didn’t need to be told twice, and the man seemed pleased to see Akaashi eat something, even though there was only enough for one bite.

After he was through eating, Koutarou raised one arm up and wrapped it around Akaashi’s shoulders, holding him close as he rubbed their cheeks together. He seemed to be trying to get Akaashi to understand something, but Akaashi couldn’t figure out what. After a long time Akaashi finally murmured, “You’re the one that saved me.”

Koutarou breathed deep, dropping his head to Akaashi’s shoulder. “You called to me,” he said reverently, in a hushed whisper.

“I… I don’t remember any of it,” Akaashi admitted, feeling a burning in his chest. He raised his hand, hesitating, and brushed his fingers over the bumpy beginnings of his lower half, scales and fins growing just under his ribs. They were slick and soft, and when Koutarou didn’t move away, he moved his whole palm down over the curve of where a human hip would be, his fingers sliding over the scales, brushing one of the larger fins along his side, the edges of it so delicate it was practically see-through, and Koutarou shuddered all the way up his spine with a wrenching gasp. His arm tightened and he twisted, pushing Akaashi over until he fell back onto the rock.

Koutarou hovered, laying half atop him, his arms caging Akaashi’s head. “That’s—” he started, and Akaashi laughed when he could feel his tail flopping like an irritated or playful cat against his leg. “Wow.”

“Feel good?” Akaashi asked, smiling up at him, amused at Koutarou’s look of bewilderment.

“Yes,” Koutarou muttered, looking a little pensive. He turned his head to look down between their bodies. “But I… don’t know if you should”—he swallowed, his body shifting so Akaashi could feel the muscles under his skin—“do it again. It feels too good.”

Even though he wanted to touch him, Akaashi pulled his hands away and instead touched one to Koutarou’s chest, finger spread. His body was still cool to the touch, like the spray of the ocean, and Akaashi realized it was starting to get cold out with the sun gone. Suddenly he was hyper-aware of the temperature and his body rebelled, shivering violently for a moment before he managed to get it under control.

“You’re cold,” Koutarou said, moving away.

Akaashi was sad to lose his touch, even though he wasn’t very warm and was probably sapping some of Akaashi’s own body heat. “I was going to go camping,” he pointed to the beach, “over there. I could start a fire. Would… would you come?”

Koutarou looked at the beach, then back at the ocean. The end of his tail flipped once as his face twisted—clearly battling with himself. “Yes,” he said slowly.

Akaashi knew it was hard for him to stay, but his voice was determined. “You don’t have—”

“No, I want to,” Koutarou said quickly as if to reassure him. “It’s just…” He stopped, shaking his head and pushing himself back over the lip of the rock. It didn’t look like it took any effort at all, the muscles of his arms rippling under his skin. “Go to the beach, I’ll meet you there.” Then he was gone, ducking back under the waves.

Standing on shaking legs, Akaashi made his way slowly back over the rocks to the beach. Quickly, he lit a fire, the matches made the blaze burn quick and bright, and in only a minute he had a cozy blaze warming his fingers and toes. He had some the simplest ingredients for curry that he could make, but he’d also knew there were low tide pools dotted all around the beach, and he thought he could find some crabs or mussels for a feast, and in preparation for that he set a grill pan just over the coals to heat up.

He was just eying the edges of the beach for tide pools when movement caught his attention and he turned to see Koutarou walking out of the surf. Walking. On legs. Akaashi’s breath left him in a rush—he was even more beautiful, ocean water dripping from his hair and strong, shapely legs—

“Oh my god,” Akaashi said aloud, ducking his head. His face was hot, but it wasn’t the fire this time. Koutarou was completely naked except for the blades hung at his hips. And if Akaashi had had _any_ doubt before about the gender of this particular creature, they were all thrown out the window after a cursory glance below the waist.

Koutarou’s feet made no noise as he walked across the beach and only once he was crouched beside Akaashi did he say, “This is— Warm.” He untied the twisted belt he wore that held his weapons and set it aside—Akaashi thought it was made of braided fishing line. He wondered what the blades were made of—up close they were black and shiny, tiny glimmers of green and blue bounced off the blades in the firelight.

“It sure is fire,” Akaashi managed to say. He looked over at him, swallowing the growing lump in his throat. “I— I was going to make some food. Dinner. Uh—” He glanced at the sky and the moon as it rose steadily upward. “Late dinner. Will you eat with me?”

Koutarou smiled at him, his arms resting over his knees. Akaashi had to fight to keep his gaze on his _face_. “If you like.” His legs were textured somehow, as if the scales of his now-gone tail were shifting just under his skin.

So Akaashi stood, brushing his hands free of sand, and cleared his throat. “I was thinking of getting stuff from the tide pools.” He pointed where he’d seen some. “I can cook them over the fire, or we can eat clams and mussels raw.”

“I can help,” Koutarou said, standing and moving around the fire—graceful even out of the water in a way that made Akaashi stare at him in mesmerized awe. He walked like one of those big ibis birds, carefully aware of each step, balancing on his toes as he moved down the beach. Suddenly he turned and Akaashi jumped in surprise—heart skip of confusion and embarrassment—flushing as he was caught staring. But Koutarou only smiled at him and gestured to the other tide pools. “You look there, I’ll search here.”

Akaashi turned and hurried off, crouching beside the first pool he found and groaning as he rubbed his hands over his face. He was having a _crisis_. With a major mental effort, he forced himself to not look over in Koutarou’s direction, instead focusing on plucking pieces of seaweed and mussels from the water. He saw hermit crabs scurrying away to the edges of the pool, and a crab scuttle away over the sand—he would have tried to grab it but he thought he might drop the rest of his bounty. When he couldn’t carry any more he went back to the little campfire and dropped it in the bucket he should have brought, but had been too distracted by Koutarou’s ass to remember how to properly breathe, much less think ahead.

“I found some!” Koutarou half-shouted, rushing back—his feet kicking up sand—then dropping beside Akaashi with an arm full of wiggling creatures. Crabs, mussels, limpets, a tiny jellyfish wrapped around his arm—though he didn’t seem to be hurting—bunches of sea kelp in his fist, and, in the other, a large, fat lobster, the claws held down by his strong fingers.

Akaashi gasped with delight and held out the bucket for him to put his armload in. He was pleased with himself and held up the lobster with glee. “That’s great, Kou,” Akaashi told him happily. “They’re delicious.”

But then he watched with horror, gasping, as Koutarou raised the lobster to his mouth—Akaashi cried out, “Don’t!” and Koutarou cocked his head curiously.

“What?”

“Don’t bite its head off! I want it whole.”

A slow smile spread on his face like he was explaining something to a small child. “I was going to kill it for you.”

“Oh.”

“Can I do that?”

Akaashi flushed and said with as much dignity as he could muster, “Yes, please.”

It was still a shock to see Koutarou bite down on the lobster’s head until it stopped moving. He held it up to Akaashi with a big smile and Akaashi silently took it.

“T-thank you.” He took it and set it on the grill pan to cook while Koutarou dug out the other crabs. There were four of them, and he killed them in the same primitive, slightly horrifying way he did the lobster and the eel before passing them to Akaashi. While they were cooking Koutarou peeled the jellyfish from his arm and, when Akaashi shook his head at it, slurped it down and swallowed it whole. It didn’t seem to bother him that it was, for one thing, still moving and, for another, slightly poisonous. Akaashi supposed that if he could eat an eel raw he could eat anything raw.

“Does that not hurt?” Akaashi reached over, tentatively tracing the lightly raised welts on his arm from the jellyfish’s tendrils.

Koutarou watched his finger, a smile pulling at his lips. “A little. It will heal when I go back to the ocean.”

“And it’s not going to hurt you or make you sick?”

He raised his eyebrows. “It’s dead. I already ate it.”

Akaashi chuckled, shaking his head and pulling his hand away with enormous effort. He wanted to slide his palms over the curving muscles of his arms. “So, can I ask,” he said as he watched Koutarou pull a hermit crab from its shell and eat it like popcorn, “well— I’ve got several questions.”

Koutarou smiled at him, digging through the bucket until he found a large, fist-sized oyster. “I’ll answer anything you want to ask, as long as you do the same.”

“Of course,” Akaashi said, digging long-handled metal chopsticks out of his backpack so he could poke, prod, and flip the crustaceans on the fire. When he realized Koutarou was waiting for him to speak he said tentatively, “So, where did your…” He waved at his legs, trying not to actually look at them because Koutarou was kneeling in the sand and Akaashi was trying his best not to stare.

“My people can shed their skin—scales,” he said, scraping dirt and sand off the oyster. “The ones that live close to land can do it, and a lot of my friends chose to live as a human for a while when they were … growing up? Before they started their lives. Not long, though. If we’re away for too long...” He trailed off, seemingly focused on cleaning the oyster.

“It’s like a ‘coming of age’ thing, then?” Akaashi prompted.

“I guess.” He shrugged, then plucked the small knife from the sand and began digging the tip between the shell of the oyster to pry it open. “I didn’t do it.”

Akaashi pulled his knees up to his chest, watching him work with deft efficiency. “Why not? Didn’t you want to try it?”

Instead of answering, Koutarou peeled open the shell and dug the knife around the meat inside, and a smile spread over his face. He plucked something from it and sucked on it, then held out his hand, palm up, smiling at him. “For you.”

Blinking, Akaashi reached out and carefully took the tiny, round pearl in his palm. It was a soft pink, ringed with waves of creamy white. “Oh,” Akaashi sighed happily, “it’s lovely. Thank you.” He curled his fingers around it, determined not to lose it until he could find a safe place for it back home.

“And this.” Koutarou pulled the top half of the shell off and held out the oyster. The wind had picked up, and his hair was starting to dry—getting fluffy and soft looking in the moonlight so that Akaashi wanted to run his fingers through it.

“That’s okay,” Akaashi said, pushing it back at him, “you can have it. These are almost done.” He poked at the crabs, pulling them one by one from the fire and setting them on a stone to cool. He pulled his pack over and carefully tucked the pearl into a small pocket, zipping it closed so that it would be safe, and he saw Koutarou smile at this careful treatment of the treasure he’d found.

“Would you like to live with us?” Koutarou asked. He tipped the oyster back and smacked his lips, grinning as he used the empty shell to dig around in the bucket.

Akaashi laughed, the idea was ridiculous. “I couldn’t—but that would be a sight to see. What’s it like?”

“It’s nothing special.” Koutarou pulled out a handful of mussels and began opening them with his fingers, passing Akaashi the meat on every other one. “We’re a small clan, only about sixty of us, and most of us live in a big...” He frowned, trying to think of the correct word. He made a motion with his hands.

“Dome?” Akaashi supplied, already fascinated.

“I guess. It’s sectioned off, but we all live in it for protection. Strength in numbers, you know?”

“Do you need strength in numbers? Are there—like—any predators or something that can hurt you?”

Koutarou raised his eyes and met his gaze, looking suddenly serious. “I can’t tell a human that, Keiji, I’m sorry.”

A shiver crawled up and down Akaashi’s spine hearing his name said like that—with such care. “Oh, yeah. That makes sense.”

Koutarou smiled though, shifting to sit more comfortably on the mat. “And you? Your house seems nice, connected to the water and all. Your family seems big.”

“You know what my house looks like?”

“I—” He flushed a soft pink the same color as the pearl. “I’ve been... watching you from the ocean. Wondering if you’d ever,” he ducked his head, “come back to me.”

“Oh.” Akaashi hadn’t been _in_ the ocean in a long time—not since he was a child. Lived on and worked on, yes, sure, that was one thing, but he’d not actually swam in the waters for fear of drowning again—and this time not being rescued. He’d always halfway believed that he’d imagined it, anyway, and he wasn’t one to risk death again. “Well— er… my family’s all gone. My dad passed a few years ago, and my mom when I was a kid.”

Koutarou frowned at him. “But you live with other people.”

“No, I don’t,” Akaashi said, then, suddenly he realized the confusion. “Oh, oh. The house I live in isn’t connected to others— Well, it is, but not the inside.” Koutarou squinted, confused so Akaashi tried to show him with his fingers, making the shape of his house and the ones on either side. “The little place where all the boats go might look connected, but they go up, not side-to-side. I don’t see my neighbors unless I see them in town.”

Koutarou’s mouth pursed in a pout, his eyes shifting as he thought this through, seeming to come to some sort of decision. “So… you’ve been alone all this time?”

Akaashi blinked, a little stunned. “I— it’s okay. I learned to cook, y’know?” He looked away from Koutarou’s intense gaze and picked up one of the crabs. “Here, try this.” Picking up a small stone, Akaashi cracked open the legs of the crap and pulled the meat out, and held it out to him. He was surprised when Koutarou grabbed his hand and sucked the crabmeat right out of his fingers. For a heartbeat, Akaashi was worried he’d lose a finger, like Koutarou was some stray dog instead of… whatever he was. Half-human, at least.

“Delicious,” Koutarou said with a smile, his fingers stroking over Akaashi’s wrist. It wasn’t clear if he meant the food or…

Akaashi cleared his throat, gently pulling his hand away. “H-How do you do the—” He gestured to his mouth. “Teeth.”

Koutarou let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “Oh, that’s right. You humans can’t do it. It’s to help us get past all those pesky shells and things that the food has.” He opened his mouth and large, pointed teeth descended from just in front of his normal teeth like the old stories of vampires.

“Oh, hell,” Akaashi whispered with awe and a little bit of terror. “That’s wild.”

Teeth vanished—Akaashi thought he could hear a sound effect, but that could also be his imagination—but Koutarou’s grin was still pointed and playful. “You’re a good cook.”

“Some think it’s better with sauce or butter,” Akaashi said, cracking another bite open. Koutarou plucked up a whole crab and began crunching the shell off with his teeth, but instead of eating it as he’d so obviously planned to do, he spat out the shell and sucked the meat from it. “But I like it straight from the source, fresh and all.”

“I’d agree with you there.” Koutarou winked at him.

As the moon rose steadily higher, Akaashi told him about his life: his job as a boat maker and the side-jobs he did as a fisherman—shocked when he learned that it was Koutarou who had been the one practically throwing fish into his boat all these years; about Akaashi growing up with his father, and how the loss of his mother had nearly torn apart his father and how that had made Akaashi grow up quickly, learning how to care for his father until he’d run the course of the worst of his grief; of sitting beside him as he learned his craft; of his friends in the city (“So that’s where you went!” Koutarou cried, relieved to finally have understood why Akaashi vanished) and their lives there.

Koutarou told him wild stories that made Akaashi’s imagination do backflips. He told the tale of him and three of his friends sneaking away from their clan when they were young, racing out to the edge of their territory, right before the drop-off to the open ocean. They’d swam down, deeper into the darkness, giggling and roughhousing along the way, until the light above had suddenly vanished. “It was like the sun had fallen from the sky, and the moon never replaced it,” Koutarou said, eyes wide and leaning forward, even though Akaashi was already rapt with attention. “It was one of the Old Ones—the largest of our species, as big as the Great Whales out in the sea.”

“No!” Akaashi gasped, clutching at the conch shell that he held in his lap. “Oh my god, some of you are that big?”

Koutarou shook his head. “Only the very old ones, no one knows how old. My father told me that they were the first of our kind, and the precursor to your kind, too, learning how to swim as the oceans formed and the volcanoes at the bottom of the sea were building the land. He said there were only a few, and they’re still alive to this day. We saw one”—he spread his arms wide as they would go—“its eye was bigger than this! It looked right at us and we thought we were going to be killed—they’re very territorial, y’know?”

“Mhm-hmm,” Akaashi hummed, automatically agreeing because _of course_ something that old would want every other lowly creature to know its place beneath them. “Yes, sure.”

“But it just…” Koutarou leaned back, rubbing a hand over his chest as he remembered, “waved its hand. It created a current and pushed us back up, back to our territory. We swam for home and never looked back.”

He told Akaashi the story of how he and his friends had challenged each other (“You and your friends get into a lot of trouble,” Akaashi pointed out with a grin, to which Koutarou only laughed and agreed happily) to catching sharks by hand. They’d taken turns, but sharks were strong animals, and could bite their arms off as easily as a human’s, or damage their fins. Koutarou hadn’t been the first of his friends to try this dangerous pastime—apparently, it was another rite of passage that wasn’t strictly _allowed_ but the adolescents did anyway—but he was the only one who had succeeded. The shark he’d managed to kill (“A big one, too! Longer than my arms!”) he’d done by wrestling it away from its herd. “…and then I jammed my fingers into its gills and—”

“That’s okay!” Akaashi said loudly, waving his hands wildly then pressing them over his ears. “I don’t want to know. I get it. You won. You’re big and strong. Congratulations!”

Koutarou grinned at him, lowering his hands from the pantomime he was attempting. He reached over and tugged at Akaashi’s wrist. “Okay, okay.” As they spoke, they’d moved closer together and taken the opportunity to touch each other, trying to be subtle but mostly failing, though neither of them pointed it out—at every opportunity. Akaashi knew the feel of Koutarou’s fingers—slightly wrinkled at first, but smooth as the finish of one of his boats now that he was out of the water—and the pulse in his wrist, the hard muscle of his arms and the curve of his shoulder.

The chill of the wind coming off the ocean made Akaashi eventually pull a blanket from his pack and wrap it around his shoulders. “Do you want to share? Are you cold?”

Koutarou shook his head, moving so he was pressed against Akaashi’s side. “I’m not cold.”

They were quiet for a time, long enough that Akaashi braved his nerves and rested his head on Koutarou’s shoulder, and was pleased when Koutarou leaned back. His hair was mostly dry now, and Akaashi had dropped a few logs on the fire so it crackled and popped, heating them pleasantly. He told Akaashi about his parents: his mother was wild but regal, and had a garden and a tiny farm that she raised fish in for the colony; he told stories of her chasing him playfully through reefs and kelp fields, playing hide and seek until he’d grown old enough for it to be embarrassing for him to be seen goofing around with his mother, even though secretly he still wished he could do that with her to this day; his father was one of the leaders of their colony, stoic and strong, always trying to teach Koutarou life lessons in every conversation, which Koutarou didn’t like but understood the reasons behind.

“Your mother sounds like a fun person,” Akaashi said, looking up at him, refusing to sit up, though. Koutarou had a hold of his hand and was tracing the lines of his palm which made Akaashi tingly inside.

“I wish you could meet her.”

“That would be nice,” Akaashi agreed. “I think my mother would have liked you.”

Koutarou glanced at him. “Yeah?” He pursed his lips, seeming to argue with himself for a moment before he said, “I remember when she died.”

“You… you do?”

“I remember you coming here,” he said softly, his voice sounding far away, tucked into his memories. “I remember wanting … to come and comfort you.”

Akaashi remembered too: a few weeks after she’d died, his father barely getting out of bed, and Akaashi realizing that he’d not had a proper meal for almost three days. He’d wanted her clam and mussel soup, and her arms around him, and to hear her laugh again. He’d tried to wake his father but he’d not moved, and Akaashi—lost in a maze of his own confused emotions—had left the house, wandering out to his secret beach before he’d realized where his feet were taking him. The full force of the loss of his mother hit him just then—only eight years old, the only one of his friends with only _one_ parent, now; a pariah—and he’d begun to cry for the first time since her death. He’d dropped to his knees at the edge of the water, not caring how the waves had splashed up over his thighs. His tears dripped down his face and even though he pressed his hands to his eyes they came even harder, falling down into the ocean to be taken away forever, just like his mother, just like his life—forever changed. He remembered, in his heart, asking someone to come and take him away.

“I wanted to go up and hug you.” Koutarou pulled Akaashi’s hand up to his lips, tracing them over the heel of his palm. “I could feel you … calling to me.” Looking up, their eyes catching, flecks of warm hazel visible in his eyes from the glow of the fire. “I could feel it, your sorrow. It took every ounce of my willpower to not drag myself out of the sea to be by your side.”

Something twisted deep in Akaashi’s chest—the pull to the ocean that he’d always felt, was that him sensing Koutarou just beneath the waves?

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, shivering when Koutarou closed his eyes and rubbed his nose over Akaashi’s fingers. “All these years… you could have shown yourself. We could have been friends. Why now?”

Koutarou breathed against Akaashi’s hand, a soft sigh that spanned all their years apart. Akaashi opened his fingers as Koutarou trailed a series of tiny kisses up his palm before pressing Akaashi’s hand to his cheek. “I was scared. The dangers we face when showing ourselves to humans—that fear is embedded in us from the moment we’re born. But… but I saw you coming here today, and I— I just couldn’t stand another year without knowing what your voice sounded like when not distorted by the water. The way your skin feels. The scent of your hair.” He looked over, a small smile tugging at his lips. “The thought of being away from you for another year nearly ripped my heart out, especially when I saw that you’d kept… a part of me with you all these years.”

Akaashi stared at him, his heart pounding against his ribs. When he breathed, the back of his throat burned with unshed tears. “Kou…” he found himself unable to speak, and instead sat up, leaned forward, and kissed him. He spread his fingers up Koutarou’s cheek and into his hair, holding him still when Koutarou gasped and almost turned away.

Then Koutarou shifted, wrapping both his arms around Akaashi’s shoulders and pulling him closer, pressing their chests together. Akaashi touched his tongue to his lip and Koutarou let out a tiny groan as he opened his mouth for him and leaned back, pulling Akaashi on top of him. He tasted the way the sea breeze felt, light and sweet, salt-water without the sour, bitter taste. Akaashi could feel his heart under his hand where he supported himself, and the twist of Koutarou’s legs as he moved to give Akaashi’s body room.

 _He was still naked_.

Akaashi wanted to be naked too. He’d known Koutarou all his life. He shivered, not from the cold, and tried to spread himself so as much of their bodies were touching as possible.

“Keiji,” Koutarou gasped, turning his face away. His arms squeezed around Akaashi’s shoulders as he ducked his face down to hide in his neck. “You need to sleep.”

Balking, stunned at this sudden change of pace. His mouth was still tingling—his whole _body_ was tingling. “W-What? No. Why?”

“You’re usually asleep by now,” Koutarou said into his neck.

Akaashi glanced at the sky, realizing how high the moon was, almost past its crest. It was late, later than he’d stayed up in a long time. Usually, he _was_ asleep by now so he could rise with the sun and pack his things before going back to his workshop for his day of work. He didn’t usually have someone to talk to—or kiss—though, and he was far from tired. “I’ll be okay. Come back up here.”

But Koutarou turned his body, gently dumping Akaashi on his side, close to the fire so he would be warm. He slid one arm under his head as a pillow and kissed him once, pulling away when Akaashi tried to prolong it. “Sleep, okay?”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know, but you need to. You were up early this morning, you can’t stay up all day and all night.”

Akaashi frowned at him. “You … you really do watch me, don’t you?”

A sheepish smile, ducking his face into his shoulder. “Sometimes. I knew today was important, so I wanted to make sure you were coming.”

“I’ve seen you, you know.”

“Oh? And here I thought I was good at hiding.”

Akaashi shifted, getting more comfortable and tugging his blanket closer—Koutarou was still not as warm as a human should be, all that oceanic chill still coming off his skin. “I never admitted it to myself, but I know you’ve been there. I know now it’s your tail that I’ve seen in the water as you swam away.”

Koutarou laughed, turning on his back and rubbing his face with his hand. “Damn. I’d be in a lot of trouble if anyone found out about that. We’re supposed to stay hidden from humans—it’s practically a law.”

“I won’t tell,” Akaashi said, kissing the soft inside of Koutarou’s arm.

They shared a smile, then Koutarou reached over and ran a knuckle down Akaashi’s cheek, touched the pad of a finger to his lips. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here in the morning.”

He stared at Koutarou’s smile, trying to memorize it. He knew this was a dream—a wonderful dream—that he’d wake up from in the morning. But Koutarou was stroking his hair and Akaashi’s eyes slid closed without his permission—his full workday suddenly making his muscles heavy, and the fire at his back warming him pleasantly, lulling him into a gentle sleep.

* * *

When Akaashi awoke, it was with a suddenness that sent him jolting upright. His pack had been pushed under his head as a pillow and the blanket tucked around him, and beside him lay the pale pink conch shell gleaming in the low morning light. With a sinking feeling of dread, he reached out and picked it up, curling his fingers into the smooth inside, realizing suddenly that Koutarou was gone. Akaashi tried not to cry, but his heart felt broken apart, and a yawning expanse loomed in front of him. It was a familiar feeling that he’d refused to name for so long—

Loneliness.

He was tired of being alone. With Koutarou’s appearance—even if he was a wonderfully realistic figment of Akaashi’s imagination—he’d thought that loneliness would be washed away. But now, all alone on the beach (again, as always), Akaashi’s insides felt as black and empty as the hollowed, burned logs that remained in the fire, ready to crumble at any moment. He knew he needed to clean his camp and prepare to go back home—he needed to shower and get to the workshop. Work would keep his mind busy.

The air was still cold, and he shivered as he folded and packed his blanket back in his bag. He should have remembered to put on his shirt and the long-sleeved sweater he’d brought for the cool of the night. But, just as he was contemplating starting the fire again—hot coffee and some breakfast might make him feel less empty inside—something caught his eye and he turned, all the air leaving his lungs like he’d been punched. Koutarou was on the outcropping of rocks, lounging as the sun rose, his face turned up to the sky and his tail flipping back and forth in the waves below.

“Oh…” He stood, still clutching the conch shell, and picked his way across the beach toward him, thinking that with every step he would vanish into thin air or slip away back into the ocean.

But when he was close, Koutarou opened his eyes and turned his head, smiling at him. His hair was wet again, and droplets of water glistened on his skin and the rock around him was dark with water that had dripped off him. “Ah, you’re awake. Good morning, Keiji.”

Akaashi crouched beside him, eyes glancing over his body before he met his gaze again. “I thought you’d left…”

“I just got breakfast. Do you want me to go get you something? There’s a big school of fish just over there.”

He looked where Koutarou pointed, out into the sea, then shook his head. “No, thank you. Did you sleep?”

Koutarou shrugged. “A little, but we don’t need to sleep as much as humans do.” He grinned, reaching up to touch Akaashi’s chin with his thumb. “Do you know you talk in your sleep?”

Akaashi felt his face go hot and sat back, turning his face away and saying indignantly, “I do not!” which only made Koutarou’s smile widen. He hugged the conch to his chest and tried not to pout, then to change the subject—he knew he did talk in his sleep and didn’t want to know if he’d said something embarrassing or not—he said, “What exactly— I mean… how do you change? From human legs to…” He reached down and ran a knuckle over the fin on his hip.

Koutarou hummed in thought and leaned back on his elbows. This allowed Akaashi to better see the change from human to—what? fish? Magical creature? He noticed that it wasn’t a sudden change, but a gradual one. Tiny flecks of scales dotted all up his sides as high as his ribs, but the soft skin of his stomach sloped down low. Only up close did Akaashi realize just how long his lower half was, easily almost double the length of his torso, and up close the colors of the scales seemed to emanate from the inside. “It’s hard to explain,” Koutarou said, watching Akaashi’s fingers as they moved, “it’s something you have to… desire. You have to imagine yourself in the other form, hard enough that your body obeys. The first time it’s hard, but it gets easier the more you do it.” He lowered his chin, looking at Akaashi seriously. “Have you ever thought about trying to grow scales of your own?”

This made Akaashi laugh. “No, that’d be silly,” he said, and as soon as he did the dreams that he’d tried to forget poked at his conscious, reminding him of false memories of living beneath the waves. He’d always assumed they were nightmares—especially as a child—and they’d tapered off since then. He hadn’t had one of those dreams in years.

His words seemed to upset Koutarou, though, who turned his face away so Akaashi wouldn’t see his mouth twist into a troubled pout. Akaashi spread his fingers, stroking his hand up his side—from scales to skin and back again, fascinated at the way his muscles shifted and moved under his fingers, to try and soothe him. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I just… I’m only a human. There’s nothing special about me. I’m not even special as a person, much less”— _a beautiful creature like you_ —“anything else.”

Koutarou frowned at him, the tilt of his eyebrows nearly angry, and Akaashi almost pulled away, but he reached out and laid his hand over Akaashi’s, tucking his fingers into the spaces and pulling it up to his chest where he touched Akaashi’s palm to his heart. “You’re special to me, Keiji. You’ve always been—” He stopped himself, as if he wasn’t allowed to say what he wanted to, and turned away, his fingers squeezing so hard it was almost painful. He was quiet for a time, and Akaashi could see his jaw working—had Akaashi made him that angry?

Scooting closer, Akaashi allowed his legs to press against his side and leaned down to kiss his shoulder—his skin was warmer than it had been as if he’d been soaking up the rays of the sun. “What’s it feel like?”

“I can’t explain it,” Koutarou muttered, dropping his hand. Akaashi could hear the splash of his tail flicking against the water, and knew he was irritated. Upset. Angry? He reached out and took the conch shell from Akaashi’s other hand and turned it over as if a mollusk had moved in overnight and he was going to take it out.

“Well, maybe you can explain to me what … what it’s… made like? What are the bones like? Help me visualize it.” He knew he’d not be able to actually turn into one of them, but he wanted to appease Koutarou, to smooth the furrow between his brows.

Koutarou looked up at him, one eye narrowed quizzically, but he shifted his weight, the entire bottom half of him moving a little. “Bones?” He inched back, and with delight Akaashi saw him pull the whole of his tail up from the ocean, curling it practically around Akaashi’s legs. Water dripped from the large fin, soaking Akaashi’s pants, but he was amused that he could pick it up like the heavy tail of a dog, and felt like a child, giddy at such a simple pleasure. “Up here,” Koutarou said, hovering his hand over the top of his lower half where a humans hips and pelvis would be, “is like you inside—I’ve seen human skeletons, too.” He reached behind Akaashi and pressed his fingers to the back of Akaashi’s hipbones. “Here, it’s the same. But our backs keep going all the way down.” He flipped the end of his tail up, almost brushing Akaashi’s shoulders.

“Makes sense,” Akaashi said, grabbing the fin with both hands and wiggling it, making Koutarou shriek a laugh and jerk it away.

“And we have bones up top that help with the strength and structure needed to swim.” He made a cage of his fingers. “Like this.”

“Like our ribs.”

“Yes!” Koutarou grinned, tapering his hands to a funnel shape. “And they sorta get smaller until we don’t need power anymore, and it’s just muscle used to help … balance, I guess. No, that’s not right.”

“Maneuverability?”

“Sure, yes.”

Akaashi traced his finger over the large fins and could feel tiny bones there, too. He moved it over the curve of his tail, pushing down firmly enough that he could feel when the bones ended, leaving only powerful muscles under his palm. “Lovely,” he said softly, in awe all over again.

“So,” Koutarou leaned forward, leaning his head against Akaashi’s, “will you try it?”

“Try what?” Akaashi asked, still smiling.

“To grow your own scales—so you can swim with me.”

“Oh.” Akaashi blinked and almost sighed, but Koutarou moved closer, dropping the conch shell beside him and touching his hand to Akaashi’s chest. Then, because he knew it’s what he wanted to hear, Akaashi said, “Okay. I’ll try.” He tucked his legs beside him and closed his eyes. Koutarou leaned his cheek against Akaashi’s, and he could feel his eyelashes against his skin. Even though he thought it was ridiculous, with Koutarou breathing against his ear and his sun-warmed skin pressing into his arm, Akaashi actually tried to imagine what it would be like to live underwater. It wasn’t hard to imagine the sorts of food he would eat, though some of them—the jellyfish, the shells, the bones—were hard to think about. He’d forgotten what it felt like to properly swim, all he remembered clearly was the weightlessness… and the sensation of water filling his lungs. He shuddered, pulling away and opening his eyes.

“I— I can’t…” he gasped, the ghost of ocean water surging down his throat nearly making him sick. “I’m sorry.”

Koutarou looked over at him and leaned their foreheads together. “That’s alright.”

Closing his eyes, he allowed Koutarou’s arms to come around his shoulders and pull him close, felt his lips tracing the curve of his eyebrow, over his temple. He dropped his head to his shoulder, inhaling the sharp scent of his skin. They sat like that for a while, Akaashi feeling the sun rising slowly behind him, his skin prickling as it soaked up the sun’s rays. Akaashi could have fallen back asleep had his responsibilities not pricked at his mind. Already it was later than he usually left, and he had a deadline for one of his boats that was looming and he was worried he’d miss. He couldn’t just stay here on the beach, no matter how much he wanted to. “Koutarou… I have to go soon.”

He didn’t get an answer for a long time, then he pressed a kiss to Akaashi’s shoulder. “Can I come with you?”

Akaashi twisted so he could look at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Koutarou smiled at him. “I didn’t get to… try out my land legs like my friends did. Maybe I could do that with you.”

“I— I’d love that.” He almost couldn’t believe it. Koutarou was going to come _home_ with him. Be in his house. Be with him for— “For how long?”

Koutarou shrugged. “Until you get tired of me.”

Akaashi laughed, shaking his head. “A long time, then? I guess… oh, I guess I need to take you home. You don’t have any clothes, do you?” Koutarou shook his head. “Shit, well. Okay, I’m sure I can find something that…” He eyed Koutarou’s broad shoulders and remembered the strong shape of his hips and legs. Akaashi’s clothes wouldn’t fit him—or, if they did, they wouldn’t be comfortable. “Never mind, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But we need to hurry if we’re going to go. Get you inside before the town really wakes up.”

Koutarou smiled at him and handed him the conch shell, then flipped his tail back out and Akaashi watched as the scales shifted, sliding off to the side like a cascade of old coins. Underneath, Koutarou suddenly had legs and scales spilled out in a wide pool, some of them clattering off the rock and into the ocean where they dissolved in a halo of light. Akaashi stared, fascinated, and reached down to pick up several of the scales—a gold and a black one, but there were so few silver ones he couldn’t find one easily.

“That’s amazing,” he said in a half-whisper.

Koutarou stood, stretching his newly formed legs—which Akaashi made it a point to stare down at the scales in his hands so he didn’t watch. “I still think you could do it, too.” He picked up his discarded weapons and they made their way back to the camp, and Koutarou watched as Akaashi finished packing and cleaning—making sure to make it seem like he’d never been there like his mother had always insisted—then they were back in the boat, Koutarou perched at the bow and Akaashi pushing the boat back into the water before hopping in and carefully stepping back to the oar.

“I’ve never been in a boat!” Koutarou declared happily, leaning over to look at the water. He leaned so far and he weighed enough that the boat tipped and Akaashi had to lunge forward and yank him back by the arm.

“Careful,” Akaashi said with a nervous laugh. “Try not to lean too far out, you’ll capsize us.”

Koutarou didn’t seem like he thought that would be a bad thing. Akaashi steered them out along the coast and was happy that Koutarou looked relaxed and comfortable. He leaned against the side, one arm hanging over the side and his hand trailing in the water.

“You’re not scared?” Akaashi asked just before they would round the inlet to the bay.

“Not at all,” Koutarou said, looking up and smiling at him. “I’ll be with you—what’s to be scared of?”

Akaashi didn’t have anything to say to that, but it warmed him from the inside the same way the sun warmed him on the outside. He maneuvered the boat into the waters of the town, and he saw when Koutarou found his house with his eyes, which made him feel a certain kind of happy deep in his belly. He pushed the boat up to his house and, before he even had to ask, Koutarou leaped out and dragged it the rest of the way up the ramp so quickly that Akaashi nearly toppled out the back.

“Sorry,” Koutarou said sheepishly, grinning.

Akaashi waved it away, gingerly stepping out of the boat and grabbing his bag. “It’s fine—just surprised me.”

“It was lighter than I thought it’d be.”

Glancing at the swell of muscles in his arms. “Yep. I’m sure it was.” He stepped in the door and kicked his shoes off at the bottom of the stairs, then glanced at Koutarou and grimaced.

“What?” Koutarou looked like he’d smacked him.

“Nothing, I just— You need to get a shower.”

Koutarou looked down at himself, wiggled his toes. “I’m not dirty?”

“You’ve got sand all over you.” Akaashi sighed, resigning himself to mopping even though he’d just done it. “Come on, step lightly. It’s just up here.”

They climbed the stairs and at the top Akaashi directed him to the bathroom just off the entrance and Koutarou grinned as he stepped onto the cool faux-stone tiles. “Your house is nice.”

Akaashi dropped his bag in the main room to unpack later then followed him into the bathroom, taking off his shirt as he went because he needed to get clean, too. Ocean water clung to his skin and sand scrubbed against the back of his neck—when had he gotten sand in his hair? He hated sand sometimes. He pulled the little stool out from where it was tucked under a shower head and pointed at it with his toe. “Sit.”

Koutarou plopped down, happy as a puppy. It made Akaashi grin as he crouched beside him and filled a bucket with warm water. He had a sneaking suspicion that Koutarou had never felt water warmer than the ocean, so even though Akaashi liked water that steamed he made sure to keep it cool for his sake. He quickly washed his hair and scrubbed his body—a process which, when he was in a hurry, took only a few minutes. And, even though he was in a hurry, he turned to Koutarou and began to help him clean himself, dislodging any sand that clung to his skin—it was an easy excuse to touch him.

“Could I use that?” Koutarou asked, happily pointing to the large tub in the corner, tucked under the window overlooking the ocean.

“Not right now,” Akaashi said, scrubbing shampoo into Koutarou’s hair to try and cleanse it of the saltwater. “It takes a long time to fill and—”

“You have to go to work,” Koutarou finished for him.

“But maybe later,” Akaashi promised him. “After dinner. You’ve never had a hot bath, have you?”

“No, but we have the warm currents outside our village, and we have small volcanoes that run under parts of our village, and they heat up the water around them _really_ well.”

Akaashi smiled at him. “I bet they do. I can make the water pretty hot for a bath, too.”

“I’d like to try it.”

“Tonight, then. For now, I think this is good.” He stepped back after rinsing all the soap off him, looking him over as if he could find any traces of sand he’d missed. After wrapping a towel around his own hips he passed Koutarou one and instructed him to dry himself, then padded upstairs to his bedroom, hoping he could find _something_ he could wear that would be suitable until Akaashi could go to the little general store at the other side of town and get him something that fit. He dug through his closet looking for any clothes—gifts from relatives or friends that were too big, maybe something of his father’s that he’d kept, anything—and finally found an over-large shirt that he had no idea where it came from, and some pants that would be tight, but would at least cover his naked ass. Not that Akaashi really _wanted_ it covered, but it would be the decent thing to do if he went to town with him.

When he returned he found Koutarou standing at the window, having opened it and leaned his body half out of it. “Kou?” he said softly, so as not to startle him into toppling out the window.

Koutarou turned to him, beaming. “It’s lovely, the view you have.”

“Oh.” Akaashi smiled back at him and handed him the clothes. “This is all I have. I hope they at least sort of fit.”

It turns out that Koutarou in tight black pants and a soft, practically see-through, white shirt was something that Akaashi’s imagination hadn’t thought of, but very much appreciated.

* * *

Akaashi didn’t want Koutarou to be alone on his first day in the human world so, after only a few minutes of trepidation wondering if he would trip and cut himself on a bandsaw, he decided to bring him to work with him. He made them a quick breakfast that they ate on the way to the shop and, once there, Akaashi pointed to a chair and told Koutarou to stay there because he didn’t want him tripping or hitting his head in the maze of support planks. Akaashi was used to working in silence, but Koutarou had a curious, mile-a-minute mind and since he wasn’t allowed to move he instead chose to run his mouth constantly.

Akaashi was a patient person, and answered his questions to the best of his ability—it was like having a very chatty apprentice—but eventually, Akaashi was so distracted he nearly ruined the entire left side of the craft he was working on. He plucked up a block of spare wood, a carving knife, and handed it to Koutarou and said, “Why don’t you try making something?”

Koutarou had been intrigued and turned the wood in his hand. “Like what?”

“Anything at all.”

After that Koutarou had been single-mindedly focused on his project and Akaashi managed to finish almost all of what he had planned for that day. He told Koutarou to leave his project on his chair and they left the shop. Akaashi steered them down the river of streets to the general store on the other end of town, amused as Koutarou waved happily at everyone they passed. He asked Koutarou to stay in the boat while he went in—he’d never found shoes that fit him, so he was barefoot—and spent half an hour searching through piles of clothes for enough garments that he wouldn’t have to do laundry every other day. He even found several pairs of shoes that he thought would fit and took his prizes back to the boat to an excited Koutarou.

They went back to the house, and Akaashi made Koutarou go and clean himself of the workshop in the shower before he allowed him in the rest of the house. “Are you hungry?” Akaashi asked him as he watched Koutarou pick through the clothes, sitting naked in the bathroom and seeming to take a lot of pleasure in picking out clothes for the evening.

“Oh, yes,” he replied, picking up a yellow t-shirt that Akaashi had found and grinned at it before pulling it over his head—it was backward.

Laughing, Akaashi stepped over and crouched in front of him to help him turn it the right way. “I’ll go make dinner, then.”

Koutarou beamed at him. “Okay.”

“If you want, you can finish dressing and go sit in the living room. There’s a tv you can watch, and I’ve opened the doors so you can see the ocean or go sit on the balcony.”

“Thank you.” He leaned forward and stole a quick kiss. “I like looking at it.”

“I know.” Akaashi ran his fingers through Koutarou’s hair before he went to the kitchen—small, simple, and still almost exactly as it had been when he was a child. He wasn’t a marvelous chef, but he knew how to make simple foods taste good, and tried to make Koutarou a simple, filling meal, trying to channel his mother as he did so. It didn’t take long, and when he started bringing dishes in Koutarou looked at him like he was some sort of god.

As Akaashi sat across from him at the low table he pointed out some of the dishes, “I made fish for you, because I know that’s what you like. There’s some sliced raw like I know you like—though there’s no scales or bones—and then I grilled some and fried some, just so you can see the differences.”

Koutarou ate voraciously anything and everything that Akaashi put in front of him. He praised Akaashi’s cooking—even the rice, which made Akaashi laugh—and Akaashi had the thought that he was going to have to double the grocery budget. He didn’t even drop any of the dishes that he carried back into the kitchen afterward. He helped Akaashi do the dishes—while telling Akaashi about the time when he was a child when he’d covered himself in seaweed and algae and spent the day chasing one of the ornery older men in his colony around and scaring him, then having to swim away and hide—and then Akaashi took him back to the bathroom and said, “Okay, it takes a while to fill up, but I can run you a bath now.”

Koutarou was already tugging his shirt off—got it caught on his head, then bent double to yank it off; Akaashi pressed a hand to his mouth to try and not laugh aloud. Akaashi started the water and pulled Koutarou’s hand over to test it and showed him how to control the temperature then said, “You sure you’re not going to boil like a lobster?”

Laughing, Koutarou shook his head and dropped his pants as if it didn’t make Akaashi’s body go warm with desire. “No, I can handle hot water, I’m just not used to it.” He climbed into the tall tub and sucked in air through his teeth as his toes touched the steaming water.

“Too hot?” Akaashi reached for the controls to put a splash of cooler water in, but Koutarou latched onto his wrist to stop him.

“No, no,” he said, “it’s okay.”

Akaashi could feel his face warming as Koutarou’s fingers stroked over his wrist, so he gently extracted it and murmured, “I’ll go get towels,” and stepped out, going to the upstairs linen closet so he could compose himself. The more time he spent around Koutarou the more he felt like he was losing control of his common sense. He was usually the picture of composure, but it was the little things that made Akaashi want to throw himself at Koutarou—the way he talked with his hands (or his hands in general, strong fingers and large, round knuckles and skin that was deceptively soft); the way his nose scrunched and his eyebrows bent together when he was thinking hard about something; the light in his eyes when he talked about things he loved; the way his voice went soft when he spoke of his mother or the pride in it when he spoke of his home to Akaashi.

When he went back to the bathroom he realized that he also liked Koutarou for very _physical_ reasons. He was lounging in the nearly full bath, arms hanging on the outside and head tipped back, revealing the sharp line of his jaw and the long column of his throat, pale in the light of the moon streaming in through the open window. Water dripped from his hair and over the slope of his shoulders, and droplets curved down the planes of his chest—Akaashi wanted to lick them off.

Koutarou raised his head, a smile curving up his lips. Akaashi remembered the taste of him and licked his own before he realized he’d done it. Koutarou’s smile widened. “Join me?”

The tub was deeper than it was long, and even though Akaashi _desperately_ wanted to sink into the hot water with him he said, “I don’t think we can both fit.”

“Oh.” Koutarou hummed in thought, looking at the bath underneath him. Akaashi reached over to turn the water off before it overflowed and set the towels aside so they wouldn’t get wet. When he looked back he saw Koutarou sinking deeper into the water and, with a jolt, saw the large, flat fin at the end of his tail unfurling from the water to drape over the edge. “Come on,” Koutarou said, “there’s room now.”

When a beautiful man asked to take a bath with him, Akaashi had absolutely no power to disobey. He stripped and carefully climbed in, finding that without two pairs of legs in the tub it was actually quite roomy. Akaashi’s brain went a little fuzzy when Koutarou grabbed his hips and pulled him more down onto his lap. Tail? Akaashi didn’t know and didn’t care to know the terminology—all he knew was his stomach was pressed against Koutarou’s and his body was absolutely an inferno from the heat of the water.

Koutarou was grinning at him in a way that meant he knew exactly what he was doing to Akaashi. Not like Akaashi could _hide_ it. His fingers stroked over Akaashi’s skin, one hand following the bone of his hip and around to trace the sensitive skin at the small of his back, which made Akaashi arch into him and make an embarrassing noise halfway between a moan and a laugh. “Put your weight on me,” Koutarou said, his voice low and husky. “You’re not going to hurt me.” He didn’t give Akaashi time to comply before he wrapped one arm around his waist and pulled them close, making Akaashi gasp and loop his arms around Koutarou’s neck.

“You’re so warm,” Akaashi said, a little breathless. He traced his lips over Koutarou’s cheek and nuzzled his nose into his hair.

He could feel Koutarou’s smile against his neck. “Do you know what you do to me?”

Akaashi chuckled, but Koutarou held him tighter and scraped his teeth over Akaashi’s shoulder. “Y-You?” Akaashi managed, his voice more breathless than he wanted it to be. “God, Kou,” he murmured, shivering despite the water. He knew Koutarou could feel just how turned on he was and had a horrifying thought. What if he didn’t know how humans—

But that thought vanished as Koutarou’s hand inched down, his palm sliding over his hip and between his legs. Akaashi cried out—remembering just how long it had been since another person had touched him. He actually whimpered, arching into him, his toes curling with pleasure, tossing his head back as Koutarou kissed his throat. He could feel Koutarou moving beneath him; Akaashi’s heart surged in his chest and he had to gasp for breath and clutch at Koutarou’s shoulders to stay grounded. Koutarou pulled him closer, and Akaashi was unable to stop the soft whine that escaped him when he rocked against Koutarou’s stomach, but the water made any relief impossible.

Teeth against his pulse.

Hands molding against his spine.

Akaashi found it a little hard to breathe, the hot water and the steam almost suffocating.

Then Koutarou’s teeth bit down against his shoulder, harder than before, and Akaashi yelped with pain, trying to move away from him. His hands moved down to grip at Akaashi’s thighs, moving his legs so he had to wrap them around Koutarou’s middle so he wouldn’t hurt his knees. Koutarou bit him again.

“Ouch! Kou, what the hell?” Akaashi tried to pull away, but apparently Koutarou could control his tail better than Akaashi thought, and used it like a wall to keep Akaashi from moving too far away. He had the horrific thought that Koutarou would use those sharp shark-like teeth against his too-soft flesh, or that he could use his tail like a boa, and knew that he could probably drown Akaashi in the tub without too much of a fight—the strength in his arms was used to wrestle sharks and seals, and Akaashi wasn’t anywhere near as strong as those animals in their natural habitat.

He felt Koutarou’s teeth slide down to a fresh part of his shoulder. A little panicky, a little angry, Akaashi took two fistfuls of Koutarou’s hair and yanked his head back to stop him biting him again. Koutarou’s teeth were the flat, square kind of humans, but he made a scary, animalistic hissing noise deep in the base of his throat. His eyes were dark, lust and anger, and Akaashi’s stomach clenched at the intensity in them.

“What the fuck?” he snapped, still holding his hair—just in case.

“I just remembered... the others that you’ve brought here. Those girls. That man.”

Akaashi was baffled. “ _What_? What does that matter?”

“You did this with them, too, didn’t you?”

“I—I’m sorry?” Akaashi almost laughed, the sound catching halfway up his throat. “You’re joking.”

“Why?” His voice was rough as sand, and his hands gripped almost painfully at Akaashi’s thighs.

“The fuck do you mean _why_. I was dating them.” He pushed away from him, shoving his hands against his chest.

Koutarou’s jaw worked, and his tail flipped, curving against Akaashi’s back. The fear of being wrestled underneath the water pricked cold needles in his chest. “Did you love them?”

Akaashi scoffed. His hair was heavy with steam and he shoved it out of his eyes with an aggravated swipe of his hand. “No, of course not.”

“Then why did you share your body with them?” Koutarou growled, his hands gripping even harder. Enough so that Akaashi jerked away and splashed water in his face.

“Stop it!” he said, indignant. “Why are you acting like such a jerk about it?”

“Because _we_ don’t do that.”

“ _We_?” Akaashi echoed, then scoffed. He pushed himself away, smacking at Koutarou’s tail and hands when he tried to stop him, and practically vaulted out of the tub. “You seem to keep implying that I’m one of you— but I’m not, Kou!” He yanked a towel from the rack and scrubbed it over his hair. “I’m just a human, nothing more.”

Koutarou lifted himself half out of the tub, water splashing over the edge and onto the stone. “But you’re—”

“No,” Akaashi snapped. “I’m going to change and you just— just finish your bath.” He hastily toweled his legs off—just enough to not drip along the floor—and stomped up the stairs. In his room, he finished scrubbing himself dry and tried to get himself under control. He knew now that Koutarou had, apparently, been watching him his whole life, but that didn’t give him the right to judge Akaashi his life choices. He stumbled a little, hating that his body was still betraying him, still aching to be touched even though his face was hot with anger. Half laying on his bed, hating himself, but liking the way his hand felt even as his body remembered Koutarou’s hands on him and the taste of him. He swore as he came—it was wildly unpleasant, but at least his body would calm down.

He lay half on the bed, grumbling and aggravated, exhausted in mind and body. He’d barely slept last night and worked all day. The last two days had been an emotional roller coaster, and he was ready to get off the ride. After he’d roused himself and dressed, a solid twenty minutes after he’d gone up, he went back downstairs to the bathroom—and didn’t see him.

Squinting, he inched forward until he could see into the still-full bath, and saw Koutarou hunched on the bottom, completely immersed, curled in on himself like a ball. Even his tail was curled around him, so much that Akaashi could barely see his head, which he hugged with his arms. Akaashi let out a long sigh, then leaned over the tub and knocked on the edge with his knuckles. He didn’t know how long Koutarou had been down there, but the oxygen in the water would be used up eventually. If a sea-creature drowned in his bathtub he’d have absolutely no way to explain it.

Koutarou tensed, but slowly he unfolded and looked up at him from under the water.

“Come on,” Akaashi said. “Get out.”

It took several beats, but eventually, he raised himself out of the water, the sides of his throat shifting as he went from breathing water to air. Koutarou watched him with big, sad eyes—a complete one-eighty from earlier. “I’m sorry,” he said, draping himself on the edge of the tub.

“Good,” Akaashi told him. “If you bite me like that again I swear I’ll toss you out the window and not look back.”

Koutarou actually glanced over his shoulder at the ocean down below, then muttered, “I’m sorry about that, too. I sometimes… My friends tell me I have extreme mood swings.”

“To say the least.”

He grimaced, not looking at Akaashi as he took the offered towel and began to rub it over his hair. Akaashi reached over and pulled on the plug cord to start the long process of draining the bath. “I’ve been in love with you for years,” he said as he pressed the towel to his face. Akaashi was glad because he couldn’t see the startled, widened eyes he was staring at Koutarou with. “And it’s not fair to you that I’m treating you as if you’ve known that all this time.”

Akaashi waited until he emerged from behind the towel before speaking. “But you’re not,” he said gently, trying to ease the blow.

Koutarou squinted at him. “Not what?”

“You’re not in love with me. You don’t even know me.”

He smiled a small, somber smile. “I know all I need to know. Did you think you were talking to nothing, Keiji? Every morning—or nearly all—I was always there.”

Akaashi had nothing to say to that and just sighed, rubbing his face with his hand. He reached over and touched Koutarou’s hair, sliding his fingers down to his cheek. “Let’s just go to bed.”

Nodding, Koutarou moved to the side of the bath and his tail dissolved in an avalanche of scales as his legs emerged and he stepped out. Akaashi reached in and plucked a silver one he saw before it vanished in the glowing, warm light that they dissolved with.

“Why do they do that?” Akaashi asked, turning the silver scale over in his fingers. “Dissolve like that?”

“To protect us,” Koutarou answered, drying himself off. “To keep us hidden from humans and also so that others of our kind can’t steal parts of us.”

Akaashi was confused. “Steal? Should I not keep them?”

“No, I’m happy for you to have them.” The way he said it emphasized something that Akaashi couldn’t put his finger on. He didn’t have time to ask him about it though, because Koutarou was stepping out of the bathroom and picking through the clothes he’d left outside the door to find something to wear.

“What do you sleep in?”

Akaashi almost said _nothing_ but reached down and pulled out a pair of sweatpants he’d found at the store. “That will be fine. It’s warm in my room.”

Upstairs, Akaashi crawled into bed and pushed open the window to let in the sea breeze. Koutarou stood nervously beside the bed until Akaashi reached out a hand and pulled him down, then tugged the blanket up over them. He wiggled close, pressing his face against Koutarou’s chest and tangling their legs together. This act made Koutarou whine deep in his throat, and wrap his arms tight around Akaashi’s shoulders.

Akaashi grinned against his skin. “Are your legs very sensitive or something?”

“Something like that,” Koutarou said against his hair, rubbing his cheek over his head. Then he made a rumbling sound in his chest and touched his lips to Akaashi’s temple. “You smell like sex.” He said it like half a question.

Akaashi ducked his head to Koutarou’s chest. “Yeah, well, it’s not happening again. I’m too tired.”

He felt Koutarou laugh softly and hug him tight. “Good night, Keiji. Tomorrow I can try and see how I can help you so you don’t have to work so hard. Maybe I can go fishing.”

“You would be good at it. We’ll figure it out. It’ll be alright.” He wiggled closer. Koutarou’s skin was warm from the bath—Akaashi had figured out that Koutarou was sort of like a lizard, his body temperature reflecting the water and environment he was in, sometimes staying hot or cool hours after his last immersion. He supposed it was a way to regulate temperature slowly so as not to shock the body with extremes. He was just happy that he could press his toes to Koutarou’s calves and warm them, or press his fingers against his stomach, feel his heart beating strong and steady under his cheek.

He was dozing off when he realized that Koutarou was making a soft, almost inaudible sound that seemed to come from his chest. It was like humming, but it felt much more intimate and primal—enchanting. He didn’t move as he listened to the sound. It tugged pleasantly at something deep in Akaashi’s belly. After listening for a while, half-asleep, already most of the way to a peaceful, quiet dream, he realized that the sound matched almost exactly with the sound of the waves washing against the shore. With the ocean all around him, Akaashi slipped into a long, deep sleep and dreamt of living a happy life under the waves with a lovely finned tail of his own.

* * *

The rest of the summer was one of the happiest of Akaashi’s life—filled with more laughter and life and love than it had been since his mother’s death. It took almost a week of Akaashi teaching Koutarou about the town and how he could blend in before Akaashi felt comfortable taking him out. He needn’t have worried though—even if Koutarou made any sort of social faux pas his enthusiasm and cheeriness would get him through anything. After a week of Akaashi cooking for them he finally took Koutarou to one of the small restaurants in town—only halfway worried that Koutarou would start to not like his own humble cooking. He needn’t have worried because Koutarou was still insatiable during mealtimes.So much so that the next week he started borrowing Akaashi’s boat during the day to go out and fish for them to try and pad the proteins and Akaashi’s wallet.

Koutarou also began wandering in and out of the workshop while Akaashi worked during the day. He explored the town and made friends with townsfolk, fished when he wanted to, sat with Akaashi in his workshop and worked on his carving—that he took much more seriously than Akaashi would have thought—or he would go back to the house. He’d been fascinated by television and spent all evening flipping through channels. He’d found the cooking channels and kept it there; Akaashi watched him sit practically nose to the screen, determined to learn as much as he could so he could help Akaashi cook. And Akaashi learned that Koutarou absorbed knowledge like a sponge and could replicate some of the dishes that he saw on television and that Akaashi taught him with delicious results. From then on they cooked together, and meal times were that much more special.

One day he came to Akaashi in the workshop—waited patiently while Akaashi finished a rhythmic pounding of nails into the planks—then proudly held out what he’d been carving from the random piece of wood Akaashi had plucked up that first day.

“What’s this?” Akaashi asked, setting down his tools and taking it. He turned it over and smiled as he realized that Koutarou had carved out a deep bowl of a simple shell. “Oh, it’s lovely. I have some sandpaper and stuff we can use to smooth it if you want.”

“If you think I can do it,” Koutarou replied, beaming, proud as punch that Akaashi liked his project.

“I think you can do anything you put your mind to.”

And so, several days later, Koutarou returned with a smooth, shiny little bowl shaped like half a scallop. “For you,” Koutarou said proudly as he presented it.

Akaashi smiled at it and traced his thumb around the scalloped edges. “Another gift? You’re spoiling me.”

He leaned down and kissed Akaashi’s cheek, laying his head on Akaashi’s. “It’s not nearly enough.”

When he got home, Akaashi set the little bowl on his bookshelf in a prominent position and placed the scales from Koutarou’s tail that he’d collected to show off their colors in the light that came in through the window. Koutarou shed them like a cat sheds fur and Akaashi was constantly picking them up off the floor or from between the sheets when he made the bed in the morning. He asked Koutarou about them, and why they didn’t dissolve like the others. Koutarou said he didn’t know, but theorized that it was because he felt comfortable and was happy to let Akaashi have them, so they didn’t go away to encourage him to collect them.

The first time they made love it was as the ocean roared under the house as a storm raged above them. The air had been hot and heavy, and the upheaval of the waves had Koutarou flustered and on edge—he’d never experienced a storm above the water and Akaashi thought he’d been a little afraid, though he wouldn’t admit it. Akaashi had tried to distract him, and when Koutarou had taken readily to the distraction they’d lay together on the bed, Akaashi kissing his way along each bit of Koutarou’s skin he could reach, his fingers following the sleek, strong muscles of his body. With every shift of their legs, thighs pressed together, feet touching, Koutarou would shiver and moan in his chest like it was the main act itself. Akaashi realized quickly that Koutarou had never done anything like this before—he had very specific thoughts about sex and sharing their bodies that seemed rather old fashioned, but Akaashi could never get specifics out of him—and taught him slowly the ways of the most primal activity humans could do together.

Akaashi moved Koutarou’s hands and fingers in the way he liked, showing him how to make it pleasurable. Once, while Koutarou had his fingers in a particularly sensitive place he said out of the blue, “What if I don’t do it right?”

“Are you kidding me—” Akaashi was sitting on top of him, legs spread, head on his shoulder as his thighs shook. “You’re— shut the fuck up— it’s—” He moved his hips, pushing back, and let out a soft moan.

“I don’t know how to do it, though,” Koutarou muttered. He’d figured out what noises Akaashi made when things felt good, and that was enough to have him exploring and experimenting, but even when he did the right thing he was so nervous it was almost irrelevant.

Akaashi didn’t want to yell at him, though, so—with as much composure as he could muster—he said, “Kou, that’s not a problem. I’m enjoying this—a lot. And just because you don’t know how to do this only means that I can teach you the way that _I like_ instead of us having to break your bad habits.” He reached down between their bodies to squeeze Koutarou in a way that made him arch and groan, his eyes squeezing shut. He wasn’t shy about their lovemaking, and Koutarou might not have finesse just yet—though Akaashi was absolutely planning on teaching him—but he had the stamina and single-mindedness of a racehorse. As thunder growled above them Akaashi’s orgasm flowed through him—a long, cool wave of pleasure that rippled through his belly and left him boneless and half-collapsed on top of Koutarou, who simply held Akaashi’s hips, fingers spread wide, and held him as he chased his own pleasure.

Every time after that Koutarou grew bolder and they learned how to read each other’s faces and bodies, and each time they lay together it only enhanced Akaashi’s growing feeling of love for him. Especially the first time Koutarou had initiated sex and took the lead, which made Akaashi’s head spin and allowed himself to get lost in the wonderful sensations Koutarou had—very quickly—learned to give him.

One day in late summer—crisp autumnal wind was blowing off the ocean, which was heavy and dark in the late season—Akaashi came home from work and didn’t see Koutarou sitting on the balcony, in front of the television, in the kitchen, or in the bath. He knew Koutarou was home because whenever he went out to town or fishing he would come and tell Akaashi first so he wouldn’t worry. Apprehensive, Akaashi climbed the stairs and found Koutarou sprawled out half-naked on the bed, deep asleep. He didn’t sleep nearly as much as Akaashi did—Akaashi assumed it was something animalistic, how many animals would sleep for short bursts throughout the day and never all at once like humans did—so Akaashi didn’t see him sleeping much. He smiled to himself and snuck his phone off his desk before carefully snapping a photo—a rare sight deserved to be documented—making sure to capture the golden afternoon light spilling over Koutarou’s silver hair and the long valley of his back, the swell of his arms and the curve of his calf as they hung half off the bed in his sprawled state.

He looked a mess—but a beautiful mess. Akaashi sent it to Kuroo with the caption: _i might be in love, kuro_

Not two seconds later he received a reply in all caps. _WTF. HOT MAN IN BED. CALL ME RN._

Laughing as he tiptoed back down to the living room, Akaashi did call him, and Kuroo answered the phone with, “Okay, _spill_. Who is that; how did he get there; and _goddamn_ where did he get those muscles. How did you catch that one?”

Akaashi set about making himself a small pot of tea. He told Kuroo the story that they’d been telling the rest of the town—Koutarou was just traveling, and he’d run out of money near the town and wandered in. Akaashi had taken him in out of the kindness of his heart and they’d become fast friends.

Kuroo listened and said, “That sounds like some fucking storybook romance, Akaashi.” He didn’t sound condescending or like he didn’t believe the tale, but he wasn’t eating it up as Akaashi had expected.

“Are you saying he’s some sort of prince charming or something? Because I’d agree with you.”

“I’m saying there’s always a heartbreak before the second act. So just be careful, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.” He was quiet a moment then said, “Though if he does end up being some fairy tale prince that runs back to his castle you can always come here, you know that, right?”

“I know, and I appreciate that. Thank you.”

Then Kuroo’s voice changed as he got past his protectiveness and asked, “So what’s he like in bed? Does he have a big—”

Akaashi choked on his tea and spluttered, gasping, “Kuroo!”

“I’m just askin’.”

Despite how happy those few months were, they were also interspersed with their share of not-so-happy moments. Sometimes they argued or griped at each other—Akaashi because he wasn’t used to being around someone twenty-four-seven, and Koutarou because he had ideas about life that he’d grown up with and when Akaashi didn’t conform to them he seemed to be angry that Akaashi hadn’t previously known about whatever he was upset about. And, more often as the months went on, Akaashi would find Koutarou in a deep, low state of depression so that nothing Akaashi said or did would help overmuch. Sometimes he looked like he was physically sick, and Akaashi would try to take care of him, but Koutarou refused most medicines and said he just needed to go to the ocean.

When he hit these points—at first only once or twice a month, but later on as often as twice or three times a week—they would go back to the beach for a day or even overnight if it was warm enough. During these times Koutarou seemed to gain back a little bit of the ethereal glow of personality he’d had that first night—Akaashi assumed it was because he was back near the ocean. He never swam in the waters, though, saying that he wanted to stay close to Akaashi since they were supposed to be there together. His eyes would wander back to the water periodically, sometimes looking sad or angry, but whenever Akaashi told him he should go swimming (“Just because I don’t want to doesn’t mean you should deny yourself the pleasure.”) Koutarou would always dismiss the idea.

He would be more buoyant after that, even though Akaashi knew that sometimes it was forced. He racked his brain for ways to help, but anything he suggested (“Do you want to take a bigger boat out to the sea?” “Want to maybe go to the city? We could visit my friend Kuroo, he’s asking to meet you.” “How about we make a saltwater bath? Would that help?” “Do you want to go home?” “Can I do anything…” ) was either rejected outright or didn’t help much, or for very long. In his heart, he knew that Koutarou was probably homesick, and so one morning as he was getting ready to go to work he suggested that Koutarou go back home.

Koutarou’s look of utter betrayal nearly made Akaashi trip over himself to get back to the bed where Koutarou was sitting so he could hug him. “You want me to leave?” Koutarou asked, not looking at him, his voice a splintered and cracked shell of what it should be.

“No!” Akaashi said emphatically. He touched his cheek to pull Koutarou’s face up and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. “No, it’s not that I want you to _go_ … it’s just that you look so unhappy. Maybe you should see your family. You could visit them— or visit me.”

Koutarou’s mouth twisted into a pained grimace. “No, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

But he wouldn’t answer. He turned away from Akaashi, and he watched as his shoulders began to slump and the dejected, despondent creature that he could be rose to the surface. He lay back on the bed, tugging the sheets up over his head and saying, “I’m kinda tired, Keiji, if that’s okay…”

It wasn’t okay, but Akaashi sighed and laid his hand on Koutarou’s chest, rubbing in soothing circles. “Maybe for dinner I can make you something special. Something sweet, maybe?”

“I’ll be okay when you’re home, I promise,” came the muffled voice from under the blankets.

After sitting with him for a few more minutes, trying to coax him out and failing, Akaashi finally left him alone, going to work for the day. He was distracted and worried all day, and kept hoping that Koutarou would come into the shop, perfectly cheery, but it never happened. After work, Akaashi took his boat and wound his way through town to the only grocery store, and while he was sitting at the dock looking in his wallet to see how much cash he had, he heard a little girl two boats over shriek with delight.

“Grandpa, look!” Her voice was high and breathy. “A mermaid!”

Akaashi’s head whipped around to look around so quickly he nearly flipped out of the boat, having to reach out and snatch a handful of the dock to steady himself.

The elderly man that sat beside the girl leaned over to look at the water, smiling pleasantly. “Oh, that’s good luck for you, my dear. You know the old legend that says they were the ancestors to our ancestors. The oldest humans crawled from the sea, but some went back under the waves.”

She tugged on his sleeve with wide eyes. “Do you think I could get her as a friend?”

“Hmm… no, little one. You can’t take them out of the water.”

Akaashi was enraptured, and knew he was staring, but couldn’t seem to stop.

“But, Grandpa, I’d keep her in the bath. She’d be in water and we could play together!”

“It’s not just the water,” the man said gently. “It’s their home. If you take them away for too long they’ll die of heartsickness.”

The little girl stared at him, then down at the water. “Oh. That’s sad! I don’t want to hurt her.” She waved down to the depths. “Maybe we can just sit on the beach and play. Come see me later, friend!”

Akaashi knew that Koutarou’s kind didn’t come into the bay (even though Koutarou _did_ , he wasn’t supposed to). He’d told Akaashi that his father had made it practically a law that they weren’t allowed to go any closer to the humans for their own safety. Akaashi was pretty sure that the girl was just imagining things—though he himself had thought he’d been imagining things his whole life. Lo and behold, he’d been right about something really being there.

But even if what the old man said was myth or legend… it would explain what Koutarou had been going through. The sickness he tried to hide. The extreme lows he had. If— If he was dying…

Akaashi felt his chest collapse. He went inside to get a small cake for Koutarou because he’d promised it to him, but Akaashi wasn’t there, not really. His mind was far away. It was under the ocean, imagining the small, lively village that Koutarou had described. A large structure divided with coral and kelp and decorated with shells and bioluminescent creatures. He could imagine the kelp gardens and the fish farms, the community parties, and the tiny nursery where the children were raised as a group by all the adults. He could see Koutarou there and knew he’d be vibrant and full of life while in his natural element. It would be unlike anything Akaashi had seen from him so far.

As he went back home and set the little cake in the kitchen his heart ached, clenching so hard he almost couldn’t breathe. Koutarou was in the living room, spread out on the couch, and half asleep. He had been overly tired the last few days—it was nearly time for their beach trip. It was almost a weekly excursion now. Sitting beside Koutarou, he reached out and stroked his fingers down his cheek. “Hey.”

His eyes opened slowly, seeming to drag himself up from the depths. “Oh—hey. You’re home.”

Akaashi forced a smile, even though it hurt. “I brought you that cake I promised.”

“Did you?” Koutarou’s sleepy smile pierced at Akaashi’s heart like a spear.

“Of course. Stay here, rest. I’ll make dinner.”

Akaashi tried to make the things that Koutarou had fallen in love with over the last few months: grilled salmon and eel, fried tempura shrimp, and many as many side dishes that he could fit on the table. They ate on the balcony and watched the sunset, and because Koutarou was tired Akaashi told him about the projects he was working on, and about Kuroo’s recently acquired boyfriend, and anything he could think of. After they’d shared the small cake Akaashi leaned over and rested his head on his shoulder.

“Do you want to go to the beach?”

Koutarou leaned back against him. “It’s late.”

“It’s also a full moon tonight.” He turned and pressed a kiss to Koutarou’s bare shoulder. “It would be pretty.”

“Yeah, okay.”

So they went. Akaashi felt heartsick the whole time, and their ride was silent as the rising moon. Once there Akaashi took his hand and they walked along the small shore. The water was frigid and Akaashi’s toes were immediately frozen, but he knew it would only get worse for him. It would never get better—he was about to rip his heart out.

“Kou,” Akaashi said gently, extracting his hand. “I love you.” It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but Koutarou could probably hear how much it hurt this time.

“I love you too. I’ve always loved you.”

Akaashi turned to him, stepping close and slipping his arms around Koutarou’s shoulders and standing on his toes to kiss him. He kissed him with everything he had, long and slow, his hands finding the softness of his hair and curling into it. They kissed until Akaashi was breathless and gasping, his stomach trembling and tears spilling over his lashes and down his cheeks.

“Keiji?” Koutarou cupped his face with his big hands and swiped his thumbs over Akaashi’s cheeks.

Akaashi kissed first one palm, then the other. He stepped back, pushing Koutarou’s hands off him. “I can’t watch you hurt yourself anymore.”

His eyebrows furrowed, mouth turning down in a worried frown. “Don’t—”

Akaashi forced himself to turn away. He plunged into the freezing water, twisting away when Koutarou tried to catch his arm.

“Where— Keiji what are you doing?” He almost shouted it.

 _It’s better this way_ , Akaashi screamed inside his head. As the water surged up around Akaashi’s hips he began to shiver. _I’m sorry. I love you. I love you. It’s_ better _this way_.

He heard Koutarou scream his name, but he hadn’t been in the water in months, and he only came in up to his knees. “Come back!” His voice broke. “Keiji, please!”

Cold. Akaashi was so cold. His toes were ice. His fingers tingled. His heart would be hammering a mile a minute trying to keep his body alive if it weren’t broken into a hundred pieces. Water burst over his chest and his toes began to slip on the sand.

_Keiji!_

Akaashi closed his eyes, and for the first time in almost two decades began to swim. He pushed himself further even as his body, heart, and soul told him to turn back. Seaspray stung his eyes. He would not look back. He just had to wait—

 _Don’t you dare!_ It was Koutarou’s voice, and Akaashi—already so deep in the sea he couldn’t touch, could barely keep his head above water, gasping for breath, _so cold_ —finally turned to see Koutarou rushing in after him, already waist-deep in the waves.

Then, just as he’d thought, something grabbed his ankle and yanked him under the water. He let out a small shout that was only bubbles at the suddenness of it. The fingers around his ankle were a vice grip and he was wrenched further downward faster than he’d have thought. Twisting, his body screaming for air, he automatically tried to fight the light-haired man that crawled up to him, grabbing at his shirt.

Akaashi had figured out why Koutarou refused to get in the water. Really, if he’d thought about it—forced himself to not be selfish—he had always known. It was obvious. The three friends that Koutarou always talked about—Akinori, Sawamura, and Yamato—were there waiting for him. Waiting to take him home. He knew that if Koutarou wouldn’t get in the water on his own he would have to make him come and get him.

But his body had other ideas, and he kicked at the man, pushing upward, breaking the surface for only a moment—sucking down air manically. He could see the beat of his heart in the dark pulsing of his eyesight. But a hand snatched him back, clamping over his mouth and nose and dragging him back under. He couldn’t do anything—another one, this one dark-haired, grabbed at his feet. He looked up and could see the fluttering image of the moon against the waves. Unlike his first drowning, he was warm all over now. His body was giving up, and his brain took pity on him and tried to help him be comfortable in the last moments of his life.

Flash of gold. A sound like a cry of fury. Something slammed into him—the hands that held him knocked away—Akaashi choked as he gasped and water filled his mouth. He saw Koutarou slashing with the small black knife he carried, scaring off the dark-haired man with a furious hiss. Then Koutarou was dragging him up by the arms until they broke the surface. Akaashi spat up water, dizzy, flailing even as he felt Koutarou holding him up.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Koutarou said, half angry and half desperate.

Akaashi tried to pull away from him, all the muscles in his legs cramping already. His voice was trembling with cold and the desperation that his plan would and wouldn’t work. He needed it to work—prayed that it wouldn’t. “I— I’m try-trying to save you.”

“You—“ But he yelped as he was yanked halfway underwater. “Keiji!”

Akaashi pushed away from him, barely able to keep his head above water. “Go,” he gasped.

The light-haired man surfaced for a moment, grabbing Koutarou’s shoulder and pulling him back.

“No!” Koutarou shouted, struggling, grappling with him. He looked angry and bared sharp teeth in fury as he swung at the other man. Behind him, the dark-haired one emerged and wrapped arms around Koutarou, then the three of them were gone, the splash and surge of water the only thing that proved they’d ever been there.

He could look down and see the flash of gold of Koutarou’s tail, the pale white of the other one as they sunk down deep, struggling the whole way. Akaashi knew it took at least two of them to drag him away with how much he was fighting them. But now he’d be safe. With enormous effort, Akaashi began the long swim back to the beach. It took all his energy, and twice he stopped and allowed himself to sink underwater just to rest a moment; eventually, though, the push of the waves deposited him on the beach, where he crawled from the water, choking and vomiting up seawater. His body was wracked with spasms—exhaustion and the early stages of hypothermia—as he tried to gulp down air, his muscles so weak he could barely crawl from the water up onto the sand and collapse.

The moon rose overhead, staring down at him like a benevolent goddess. She would not help him.

Koutarou was gone—Akaashi was once again alone and broken… but at least Koutarou was safe.

He closed his eyes, tremors wracking his body, and tried to imagine the vast expanse of years ahead of him without any of the light or warmth of Koutarou in his life. It was painful. He wasn’t sure he could do it.

But he would have to.

* * *

“Oh, hell,” Kuroo said softly when Akaashi showed up at his door the next afternoon. “You look like shit.” He let Akaashi inside and immediately steered him to the couch to sit. Akaashi couldn’t even argue, but just dropped his duffel bag and sank down gratefully. Kuroo retreated to the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with hot tea, and when Akaashi sipped it realized it was heavily spiked.

“Thanks,” he said, barely keeping his voice steady.

Kuroo was quiet beside him, and they drank their tea in silence. But when the cups were empty he asked, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“No.” Akaashi sighed, slouching down into the cushions. “Not right now, anyway.”

Kuroo only nodded, then went and gathered blankets and pillows for the couch, but he picked up Akaashi’s bag and left it in his own bedroom. “Don’t argue—it’s fine. Have you eaten? No, I’m sure you haven’t. I’ll go get food for us. Go lay down. Or watch TV.”

When he was gone Akaashi’s whole body seemed to collapse in on itself. He’d not slept at all last night—constant reminders of Koutarou’s presence all around him: his scent on the pillows; his clothes spilling from the dresser; the fish he’d caught still in the fridge, waiting to be cooked; the still-warm scale once again back around his neck; the long, hooked blade that was used for hunting that he’d left under their bed. Akaashi wasn’t sure what he would do with that. Was afraid that if he touched it he’d cut his fingers off. He stood, moving into the kitchen and found the bottle of liquor that Kuroo had spiked the tea with, and sat back on the couch to nurse it until Kuroo returned home, wondering if getting drunk would slog his thoughts and memories enough to wipe Koutarou from his mind … even if it would only be temporary.

* * *

“Talk to me.”

Akaashi sighed, his head on the table. His head hurt from drinking too much before dinner, but Kuroo had promptly taken away the alcohol and plied him with water and food so he didn’t think he’d be sick in the morning. They’d eaten while Kuroo filled the silence with talk, updating Akaashi on his life because he knew Akaashi didn’t want to talk. But it seemed that his peace was up and Kuroo was taking on his role as sympathetic best friend had turned into _protective_ best friend. “He had to go home,” Akaashi managed to say, muffled into his arms, barely keeping his composure.

“Your boyfriend?”

“Mhm-hmm.”

He heard Kuroo sigh. “Why? Do I need to track him down and kick his ass?”

“No,” Akaashi whined into the table before sitting up. Kuroo pushed his half-empty glass of water at him. “He was sick. He got sick.”

Kuroo made a dubious face. “And he couldn’t go to the pharmacist?”

“No, it was…” Akaashi looked away, rubbing the heel of his hand over his cheek. “It was something else. Something that our little town couldn’t fix. He had to go back to home to be healed.”

“That’s bullshit. He could have invited you—”

“It’s not like that.”

“What’s it like, then?”

Akaashi shot him a glare but couldn’t muster up the force to make it stick, so he dropped his head in his hands. “I made him go. He didn’t want to. It’s my fault.” His throat tightened, heat burning. “It was my fault.”

“I doubt that, Keiji.”

“He’s home now,” Akaashi mumbled. “He’ll be fine.” He wasn’t crying—but it was a very near thing. Just because he didn’t let the tears fall didn’t mean they weren’t there. He choked on his sobs for a time, as quiet as possible, swallowing down as much noise as he could. Kuroo let him cry for as long as he needed, only reaching over and touching his arm—but removing it when Akaashi pulled away from him. He wasn’t ready for anyone else to touch him.

“You should stay here a while,” Kuroo said after Akaashi’s breathing was back to normal and he’d tired himself out. “And by that I mean: you’re staying here for a while.”

Akaashi didn’t look up at him, only sniffled and said, “Thank you.”

* * *

He stayed with Kuroo for almost two months. Several times he tried to leave but Kuroo had held him back and looked in his face, studying him for only a moment before taking his bag away and demanding he stay another week. With his savings, Akaashi paid for the food he ate, gave Kuroo money for rent—even though Kuroo tried not to accept it—and tried to be as little of a bother as possible while he moped around… then tried to pick himself back up.

But finally, he knew he had to get back to his life. He’d run away for long enough. He’d left while Kuroo was at work because no matter what Kuroo thought he was ready. He needed to be.

As soon as he stepped onto the main landing the smell of old, stale air overpowered the small part of him that was still searching for that sweet, bright scent of Koutarou’s skin. Closing his eyes, he forced his emotions way down into the little box he’d been building inside his heart. He wouldn’t cry again—he’d done enough of that. In order to distract himself, he set his mind to cleaning. He went around the house—all but their (his now, all alone) bedroom—opening all the doors and windows to air out the place, even with the cold of the winter air. He told himself it was invigorating.

The day was spent cleaning: dusting every inch of every surface, twice; mopping all the floors and even the stairs, balcony, and down in the entryway where the boat was kept; doing all the laundry and dishes he’d neglected; scrub the bathtub and get a brush to the spaces between the stone tiles; pretty much scrubbing every inch of his house from top to bottom, bedroom excluded. He even did all the organizing he’d been neglecting for years. Pack away all the knick-knacks on the shelves that only collected dust. Remove the superfluous dishes in the kitchen—he was only one person, he didn’t need a lot of dishes. Organize his movies. Organize _everything._

He worked all day until the air was scented with cleaning products instead of dust, and eventually his body was shaking with how overworked and tired he was. It was freezing in the house because the windows had been open all day, but he hadn’t noticed because he’d been distracted. Now, though, sweat cooled on his skin and he shivered as he closed all the windows and contemplated taking a bath after his shower just to feel warm again. Before he did any of that, he needed to go up to his bedroom. He’d not stepped in there all day, but he needed to at least change the sheets and probably air it out, too.

Standing outside the door, he tried to steel his heart against the hurt he knew was coming. It didn’t help, though. The air in the bedroom was stuffy and close, but under the old air, it was still the same scent of their old lives together. Akaashi pushed on, throwing open the window and yanking the sheets off the bed and pillows. He threw them in a basket to wash tomorrow and then—quickly, so he wouldn’t think about it—stuffed anything Koutarou had left into a big box. He even carefully moved the long black blade and wrapped it in pillowcases before sliding it safely into a space he made in the back of the closet for all Koutarou’s things. Akaashi even removed all the posters on the wall. Picked up all the shells and scales scattered around the room, putting each in their own respective collection jars. The shells he put in a box on a shelf in the hall closet instead of decorating the extra spaces of his desk and shelves with them since he’d done from childhood. The scales he wrapped in a scarf and tucked under his bed, right under his pillow. The conch shell found a new home in a little-used drawer of his desk.

(He never took off the scale around his neck, though. He couldn’t. Not yet.)

When he went to bed that night—after a warm shower—he crawled into bed under his heated blanket and curled up, clutching the scale around his neck and packing pillows around him as if they could hug him instead of the person he was missing. He never got warm that night.

* * *

Akaashi did all he could to keep busy. He took on more projects than he was comfortable with, including making little things like shelves or statues or cabinets for people around town. He made boats in record time because all he did was work and sleep. He spent a week making a lovely intricate box to keep Koutarou’s scales in. Some days he forgot to eat. Mostly he kept all the doors and windows closed around the shop and his house, keeping his back to the ocean because no matter how it called to him, he knew it would only bring more pain. Saltwater would only hurt the wounds in his heart.

Over the winter he went back to the city a few times to visit Kuroo, or Kuroo would come to visit him for a weekend. Kuroo tried once to ask him if he’d heard anything from Koutarou, but Akaashi didn’t answer and simply said he’d needed to go to bed. After that, they never spoke of him. Once, when the winter air was finally receding, they were sitting on Akaashi’s balcony eating dinner when Kuroo said, “I’m glad it’s getting warm again.”

“Me too.”

Kuroo looked over at him, studying him. “You’ve thought about my offer?” The last time Akaashi had visited him Kuroo had told him he’d made a new friend that worked in real estate. She’d offered to help Akaashi find an apartment in the city and Kuroo had even said he’d help him move.

Akaashi chewed for a long moment before responding, “Maybe. I just need time.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“I know.” Akaashi sighed, leaning against the rail. The only time he ever sat out on the balcony was when Kuroo was here. The ocean hummed underneath them, and Akaashi could feel the way the waves seemed to dictate the beat of his heart. “You don’t need to, though.”

“It’s just you all by yourself with the ocean. I don’t like it. You can do a lot in the city. You’re a talented woodworker. There’s no shortage of work you could get if you came and showed off your skills there.”

He didn’t answer for a time, instead sipping his way through the silence with his tea. But Kuroo didn’t say anything either, knowing that, eventually, Akaashi would bow to the pressure to fill the silence. “I love the ocean with all my heart, Tetsu. I can’t leave it.”

“Then why do you look like you’re dying a little inside every time you look at it?”

Akaashi sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Please don’t.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Please.” Akaashi stood, gathering the dishes. “I’ll clean up. You can use the bath first.”

He retreated into the kitchen to wash the dishes so he didn’t have to tell Kuroo how much the idea of leaving town appealed to him. He’d been thinking it for a while—but his fear of leaving the ocean stopped him, no matter how much it hurt him. He kept trying to catch a glimpse of gold in the water, or listen for a sound of water splashing. It never happened. He hated it. He was happy. He loathed himself. But Koutarou would be better—would be healthier—staying right where he was.

Akaashi would just have to figure out if staying or leaving would hurt worse. Everything hurt right now, even all these months later, so how could it get worse?

* * *

Spring came and went. The summer sun was looming high and hot. Even Akaashi’s dreams were warm, and he’d wake up sweating more often than not—but not always from the heat of the room. When last year his dreams had been of water and drowning, and fear—now they were filled with memories. Sharing baths with Koutarou. Sitting with their feet in the surf, sunburned shoulders pressed together while they kissed. The way Koutarou would hold him while they slept. Kisses. More than kisses. Koutarou’s hands—everywhere. More often than not he woke with problems other than heat and sweat.

One dream frightened and excited him—living under the waves, swimming in the sea in a way that he hadn’t since he was a small child. It was heaven, being with Koutarou again—even if it was only a dream. But it did remind him what day it was when he woke. As the sun rose he crouched beside his bed and dug out the little box he’d made and slid the panel aside to see the gold, silver, and soft black of them against the morning light. He picked up a handful, letting them slide through his fingers and scatter back in the box. He needed to close this chapter of his life. Call that realtor. Pack his house. It was killing him to stay, just like how it would kill Koutarou to come back.

So he took the morning off and walked to the beach, the little box clutched against his belly. It was a long walk, but he needed it to try and gather his courage. At the beach, he left his shoes on the sand and stepped into the water until the waves were lapping at his knees. He took a breath, his chest shaking.

Then, his heart falling with them, he turned the box over to let the scales return to the sea. Upon touching the water they began to burn with gold light, already beginning to dissolve.

But one was missing.

From around his neck, he pulled the very first one that Koutarou had ever given him. The one he’d pressed into his hand as he’d pulled Akaashi from the sea. It hurt. It was like ripping his guts out. He clutched it between his hands, box tucked under his arm, and kissed his hands before pressing it against his chest—a final goodbye.

Something hummed against his palm, and when he pulled his hand away he almost fell over in surprise. The scale was gone, glowing warmly against his chest—light dissolving against his skin. It sank down, vanishing and spreading light along his chest and stomach. He stumbled, swearing, as something burning… cold… bloomed in his chest and made its way outward, spreading until he was gasping for breath. His throat—neck—hurt. The sun was too bright. His legs tingled, and he stepped back, trying to get back to the beach, but his body collapsed and he fell nearly face-first into the water, barely able to catch himself.

He sucked down air, but couldn’t breathe—it got stuck in his chest. It was like his lungs couldn’t accept the air he was trying to give them. Sand shifted under his hands and knees and water kept surging up around him, splashing into his face and soaking his clothes. The water wasn’t the right color, but his vision was hazy and he wasn’t sure if the swirling gold and silver was in his head or remnants of the dissolving scales.

His head spun. He knew this feeling. He choked on air. His body wasn’t his own. He collapsed, splashing into the waves, staring up at the clouds as they floated past and the water reached up icy fingers to drag him down into the sea.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, a school of fish was swarming past his face. He gasped in surprise, then twisted and choked as water rushed down his throat. Don’t breathe— _got it_.

He sat up, startled, and already half-panicked, but knowing what he would find. He’d transformed into the same half-land-half-sea creature that Koutarou was. His scales were a royal blue and a soft, foamy green. Reaching up, he found a set of long openings on either side of this neck—gills! He could breathe underwater! He sat for a few minutes learning how to properly breathe—some instinct telling him to simply let the water flow over his gills, pulling water into his body… but it wasn’t really water. Something was able to separate the oxygen in the water so he didn’t fill his lungs with anything but air. After several minutes of focusing on this, he let his mind move on, hoping he could breathe without thinking about it.

His shirt was soaked through and made it hard to move, so he pulled it off—his pants were long gone. Moving was different, and difficult. His spine was longer than he thought it would be, and it took him a long time of testing various maneuvers before he was able to figure out how to simply move forward—grateful that no one was around to see him looking like a fool.

After he’d learned how to move forward—bumbling as it was—he began to see things that he hadn’t noticed before. The micro-currents of warm and cold, the way the water moved around him. It was fascinating, once he was done being scared. And, somehow, he knew where to go. There was only one place to go. It was a long swim, and halfway through he finally got the motion of swimming down, and began to follow the rhythm of the water to propel him forward even more.

Eventually, he found what he was looking for. The city was tucked in the trough of an underwater mountain range, with several tall, round structures dominating the space. They were various species living coral, and Koutarou had told him long ago that their predecessors had learned how to force it to grow a certain way so they could make their homes. Lines of lovely bioluminescent moss lined the domes and the boundaries of the village, and Akaashi could see—he also realized that he didn’t need as much light to see by as he used to, and the light that he did have seemed to travel farther—little tunnels of cages for glowing fish to swim through that helped to light the spaces between the buildings.

Before he could move down, however, something screamed, _Hey, you!_ in his head, so loud that he yelped in surprise and choked on water again. He’d barely recovered himself when the light-haired man that had come up and taken Koutarou away was in front of him, baring his teeth and glaring, pointing a long spear up under his throat. Akaashi threw his hands up, and tried to say, “Wait!” but only managed to swallow water.

The man—Akinori, he remembered Koutarou describing him—scowled at him, and looked him over. _You’re Koutarou’s lover._ The words were spoken directly into his head.

Akaashi could only nod helplessly. He didn’t know how to speak.

Lowering his spear, he looked Akaashi over with a critical eye, then turned and moved away. _I’ll take you to him_.

He followed the man down through the buildings, trying to not look like an idiot as he maneuvered turns he hadn’t practiced much. They slipped through an opening in the largest dome and down toward a platform jutting out from the wall. Akaashi’s heart skipped.

Lounging around the platform were several different people—one of them was Koutarou. The six of them were playing some sort of game—two of them taking turns tossing a shell up and letting it flutter toward the bottom, waiting until the last second before one of them would lash out to try and catch it, resulting in some exchange between the thrower and the one who didn’t catch it, followed by riots of laughter. They stopped when Akaashi and his guide got close, and suddenly Koutarou saw him. They stared at each other—a moment frozen in time.

Then Koutarou launched himself up and toward him, and Akaashi barely had time to prepare himself before Koutarou slammed into him. They spun a little as Koutarou wrapped him in his arms—Akaashi could hear him laughing, could hear him shouting his name with glee. Akaashi hugged him hard, wanting to cry—the only way he knew how to show how happy he was to hold him as hard as he could. Koutarou pulled away and grabbed his face, pulling him in for a fierce kiss that would have taken Akaashi’s breath away if he’d had any.

He pulled away, his hands on Akaashi’s cheeks, and grinned at him. _You’re here!_

Akaashi could only nod, clutching at Koutarou’s arms.

 _Oh_ , Koutarou’s voice said in his head. He pulled Akaashi close and touched their foreheads together. _You haven’t figured out how to talk yet, have you?_

Akaashi shook his head helplessly, feeling like a lost puppy.

Koutarou twisted, and even though he wasn’t talking to him, Akaashi could hear him, _I’ll be back._ He kept hold of Akaashi’s hand.

The others looked worried, and Akinori scowled at him. _Soon?_

 _Yeah. Soon._ He hesitated and made something akin to a scoff. _Yes, by dinner. I said soon, I mean soon._ Turning, he pulled Akaashi away, up and out of the dome. Koutarou was fast and was basically dragging Akaashi along out of the village before Akaashi managed to get his attention. He turned back to look at him, frowning in confusion. _What?_

Akaashi made a motion back to the village.

 _No, no_. _We’re going back to the beach so I can teach you some things. Then I’ll take you on a tour._ Koutarou smiled at him, Akaashi’s personal sun. After Akaashi nodded Koutarou pulled him along and they were back near the beach in half the time it took Akaashi to get to the village. _Okay_ , he said, _so when we go up you’re gonna want to take a breath immediately, but don’t. It’s going to take a second or two for your body to shift gears, and I don’t want you panicking. Got it?_ He smiled, stroking Akaashi’s hand where he still held it.

He was right. When they surfaced Akaashi had to control himself to not suck down air—not until he could feel the change in his body that allowed him to breathe. The first breath of air was strange, it felt foreign. He almost sobbed—relief, fear, joy, sadness, all the emotions rolled into one—and reached for Koutarou to hug him again. “Kou! Oh my god, I— I can’t believe—”

Koutarou wrapped his arms around Akaashi’s shoulders and held him close, peppering kisses along his hairline. “It’s okay, my love, I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

Akaashi’s tears mixed with the sea, and Koutarou pulled them over toward the same jut of rocks they’d met at. He let Akaashi cry while he pet his hair and kissed him. But when he looked up he could see that Koutarou’s eyes were shiny with tears, too.

“I’ve missed you,” Akaashi said, barely able to get the words out.

“You were gone so long,” Koutarou said against his ear. “My friends had me on lockdown. I couldn’t come and get you. I was so mad at you for doing that…”

“I know, but—” Akaashi started but a wave moved past them and he grumbled as Koutarou had to keep him from sliding off toward the shore. “Can we get out of the water?”

Koutarou laughed softly. “Of course. Come on, I’ll help you up.” He lifted himself out of the water and reached down, taking Akaashi’s arm and hauling him bodily up right beside him. He chuckled as Akaashi struggled to balance himself—his hipbones were larger and wider than he was accustomed to and he kept wobbling and having to hold onto Koutarou’s outstretched arm until he figured out how to sit upright. “You got it, you got it.”

Akaashi felt himself blushing, but finally, he was able to sit straight, but he didn’t let go of Koutarou’s arm. The rock underneath them was baked hot from the sun, but it felt good after the chill of the water—even though he wasn’t cold. He didn’t feel cold or hot on the inside but could feel the temperature of the world around him as his body tried to match it. The sun was up again—he must have slept all through the day and night—and it felt like it was laying a hot blanket over him, his skin was heated and tingled as it dried in the sun.

“What took you so long?” Koutarou asked, smiling at him.

Confused, Akaashi stroked his fingers. “What do you mean? I didn’t even— I didn’t know I could… do it. It scared me.”

“Wait, you didn’t do it on purpose?”

“No! I thought I’d died!” Akaashi nearly shrieked it, remembering how he’d been choking on air and the haziness of his vision.

Koutarou’s smile faltered, and he looked nervous. “Oh. I’m sorry, that… must have been scary.”

Akaashi groaned some, rubbing his face with his hands. The ghost of water in his chest and air unable to be breathed made his chest tight. The sea rising up to grab him. But, suddenly, Koutarou’s words came back to him. “On purpose? What do you mean ‘on purpose’?”

“I was just… wondering what took you so long. Like I said, I would have come back to get you—”

“But you were sick!”

“Only for a little bit!” Koutarou said, waving a hand. “I got better pretty quickly, but my friends were worried I wouldn’t come back so they wouldn’t let me leave.”

Akaashi frowned at him, his confusion petering down into annoyance. “What makes you— You knew I could… how could you have known?”

“I’ve told you all this time,” Koutarou said with a smile, reaching up to touch Akaashi’s cheek. “I’ve been trying to tell you that you could do it. You’re one of us, you’ve got that connection with the sea that we all share.” Akaashi remembered many of Koutarou’s words throughout their time together: _Keep it safe,_ some of the first words he’d said, talking about his scale; The familiarity Akaashi had felt upon hearing his name for the first time; _Would you like to live with us?; Have you ever thought about growing scales of your own?;_ the morning after they’d met when he’d tried to teach Akaashi how to grow scales of his own; the constant touching of their faces together, Koutarou trying to show him how to speak; and the first time they’d argued—Koutarou getting angry about the other people Akaashi had dated—and saying _we don’t do that_ as if Akaashi was already a part of his village.

“But... how did you know? How could you possibly have known?” Akaashi couldn’t understand. He knew it was true but he still had a hard time believing it—even looking down at the proof of his lower body.

Koutarou studied him for a moment, sliding his knuckles over his cheek and down his arm to hold his hand. “I gave you the ability to shift, Keiji. At the time—when we were kids, when I saved you…” His voice was soft and gentle, along with his fingers stroking over Akaashi’s knuckles. “I thought you were coming to us. I’d heard stories of humans changing, or of my kind going to live with you, but it wasn’t until I … heard you calling out that I realized you weren’t—”

“Wait,” Akaashi cut him off, “you said that before. I didn’t say anything. I was drowning.”

That made Koutarou’s smile turn up the edges of his mouth, but it was in a far-away, solemn way. “What brought me to you was, at first, just your… feelings. But then I asked you if you were coming to live with us and… I could tell that you were out of it. Something was wrong.”

Akaashi barely remembered—but he did know that he’d seen Koutarou’s face, and he remembered his last thought before he’d blacked out—‘ _Please_.’

“So I picked you up,” Koutarou continued, “and carried you to shore. I thought… I wanted you to come and play with me, though, so I wanted you to come back and learn how to shift and grow your scales. I knew they’d be lovely. So that’s why I gave you one of mine, even though I didn’t realize the significance of it at a time—I was only a kid.” He smiled, leaning over and sliding his fingers over the first bumpy scales along Akaashi’s waist. It made Akaashi shiver. The sensation—even so high up, not even really the place where he began to change, but it was still so sensitive. “And it paid off. I could feel you in my heart from then on. And I know you could feel me.” He looked up, leaning his head over to press his lips to Akaashi’s shoulder. “And I kept trying to tell you you could do it; but, the thing is, I can’t force you to change. You had to want to do it all on your own.”

“But I didn’t know what was happening. I was…” He trailed off, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “I was trying to say goodbye.”

Koutarou’s brow furrowed.

“But I didn’t want to,” Akaashi muttered. “No matter what I tried to tell myself, in my heart I just wanted to see you again.”

“That’s all you needed—the desire to find me. And you did.”

Suddenly Akaashi remembered the loss of the scale that had been around his neck almost constantly since that day when they were kids. “Oh, Kou, I’m so sorry,” he said, the agony of the loss making his voice high. “I lost—or it dissolved—I don’t know—the first one you gave me. It’s gone… I kept it all this time and now—why are you grinning like that? I’m sad!”

Koutarou laughed as he pulled away and Akaashi smacked his chest. “You didn’t lose it, silly.” He caught Akaashi’s arm as he tried to pull away, grinning. “Wait, no, don’t— Look, I’ll show you. It’s here.” He leaned over and directed Akaashi’s attention to a place just under his hip. He didn’t touch it but showed Akaashi that, indeed, there was a small singular speck of gold in the blue and green of his own scales.

“Oh!” Akaashi laughed a little, bending over to see better. “That’s so— wait, so it’s mine now?”

“No,” Koutarou grinned at him. “It’s mine. But it’s a part of you.” He reached down now and laid his palm over the place where his scale mingled with Akaashi’s. He slid it over the front of Akaashi’s body, and Akaashi shivered again, unable to stop the little groan that jumped up from deep inside him. It felt _good_. He didn’t know if he was overly sensitive or if the sensations were just so new they felt wonderful, but with the way Koutarou smirked at him he thought it might be normal. If this is what he’d felt anytime Akaashi had touched him then he understood Koutarou’s extremely visceral reactions.

“Yeah?” Koutarou grinned at him, moving even closer to kiss just under his shoulder. “Feels good, mhm?” He spread his fingers, and Akaashi shuddered.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “W-Why does it— You’ve always felt like this? It feels like…”

Koutarou lifted his head so he could brush his lips over Akaashi’s throat—it felt just as good as he remembered. Better, because he’d gone so long without. “It feels like I’m touching some place deep inside you, doesn’t it?”

“God,” Akaashi gasped out. He reached up and shoved his hands through Koutarou’s hair, pulling him over to kiss him—feverish, longing, desperate. Koutarou obliged him, moving so they were touching chest to chest. Akaashi kissed him like he’d dreamed of doing for months. Like he wanted to do for the rest of his life. And Koutarou kissed him _back_ just as desperately.

“Wait—” Koutarou said, then moaned as Akaashi slid his hand over his side and licked into his mouth. “Oh, Keiji, hang on, I need to tell you—”

“What?” Akaashi asked, a little annoyed, a lot turned on. “Why do you want to talk? Can’t we talk later?”

Koutarou let out a breathy laugh, touching their foreheads together. _I have to tell you something important_. _I have to teach you how to communicate like us_.

Pouting, Akaashi said, “Right now?”

 _Yes, because we have to go back_. He smiled, seeming pleased with that idea. _If I—we—don’t go back by tonight, I think my friends might just come and kidnap me. From your house this time._

Akaashi huffed, shifting and finding that he could sit more comfortably if he twisted his tail around to act as a ballast. “Stop that. I can’t answer you like that.”

 _You can,_ Koutarou grinned, leaning his cheek against Akaashi’s. _Like most of our changes, it’s all about intention. About wanting. The same way you grow your scales or discard them for legs, you have to want to talk to us. It’s not just thinking, you have to project your words to us. To many or to one, it’s the same. Just like how you reached out when you were a kid._

He frowned at Koutarou, hesitating, but knowing he had to try. If he wanted to make any sort of life for himself in the underwater village with him he had to try. It was hard, and it made a place just behind his left eye hurt.

 _I can sense that you’re trying—you’re close_. Koutarou bumped their foreheads together gently, rubbing like a cat. _It’s easier when we’re connected. Keep trying_.

Akaashi closed his eyes, grumbling. He tried to picture it—being connected in that way. Able to share his very thoughts with Koutarou, instead of clumsy words. But, of course, they would still be words. Clearly Akaashi wasn’t just hearing everything in his head—he hadn’t heard the other man’s thoughts either—just what Akaashi wanted him to hear. He focused his entire mental focus on Koutarou—thinking: _This is hard!_

Eventually, Koutarou laughed aloud, pulling away. “You got it. Just practice now.”

“It’s—“

Koutarou covered his mouth with his hand. _Practice._

He rolled his eyes. _I want to go back to kissing_.

When Koutarou grinned at him he knew that he’d heard him. They spent a while practicing this new skill. Akaashi told him about anything he could think of: spending time in the city with Kuroo, the boats he’d worked on, the other projects. Koutarou told him about the hell he’d gotten once he’d been taken back to his village. His parents had been furious. His friends had been, too. He’d more or less been on lockdown for a month, having to ingratiate himself to his father before he’d been allowed out of the dome. And since then there had been someone with him nearly every moment of every day, guards in occupation if not in name. They were his friends, but they were also his keepers—keeping him in the village.

 _Alright_ , Koutarou said—thought at him?—an hour later, _you’ve got this down, at least._

Akaashi smiled at him. _Thank you for showing me. Do you really think I could live with you?_

 _We’ll live with each other._ Koutarou traced the muscles of Akaashi’s arms with his finger. They were baking in the sun, but still Akaashi wasn’t overly hot like he would have been just yesterday or the day before. His body was absorbing the heat to release later when he was deep under the waves.

“Yeah?” Akaashi asked, his fingers twitching when Koutarou tickled the inside of his elbow. “How will we do that?”

Koutarou shrugged. “Spend some time here, some time there. Take turns or we can work in our respective places during the days and sleep here or there at night. It’s not hard. We love each other, we’ll figure it out.” He paused, looking up at him, his eyes burned gold and warm. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you about our way of life before we … keep going.”

“That sounds ominous. Is it bad?”

“No, no. It’s not bad. It’s just different than humans. It’s… important, though.”

Akaashi frowned at him and was tempted to pull his hand away. Koutarou’s face had shifted—he looked scared. Or worried. “What is it?”

“You know the way that you have a piece of me on you, now?”

“… Yes. I’m not worried about that. I actually rather like it.”

Koutarou half-smiled, ducking his head and pulling Akaashi’s hand up to kiss it. “I told you that the reason they dissolve when we shed them is to protect ourselves, remember? I meant that. When we share them with each other we are literally giving a piece of ourselves away. I was young, but I still _felt_ it when I pressed my scale into your hand. You did too. That’s when your eyes opened. I gave you a small piece of...” He frowned, his mind working through the words, fingers absently stroking Akaashi’s hand. “A piece of my soul. And when you shifted and absorbed it, I felt that, too—your acceptance.”

Akaashi was watching him carefully, studying his face. Clearly this was a big deal, and Akaashi hadn’t realized just how monumental until just now. This is why Koutarou had reacted the way he had when he’d asked Akaashi about the other people he’d dated. “Like— literally?”

He shook his head a little, but not in denial. “I don’t know—but it doesn’t change the fact that we can feel each other more deeply with each exchange. My mother and father—their scales are so entwined that no one can remember what they looked like before they met. They can feel each other from anywhere—emotionally, physically. My mother can pinpoint my father’s exact location in our village at any moment.” He held one hand up in a defensive way. “I’m not saying we have to do that, but it’s tradition to—“

“You want one of mine?” Akaashi asked, stunned and incredulous. “But you—yours are so much prettier!”

Koutarou kissed him almost before he could finish his sentence. “Don’t say that. I’ve always thought you were beautiful.”

“It’ll look weird—just the one,” Akaashi said with a small smile, feeling himself blushing—warm from the inside with happiness. “We might want to do a few more, just so it’ll look… more natural.”

“You really want to?”

Akaashi tried hard not to roll his eyes, the smile spreading on his face. “Of course. How do I do it?”

Grinning, Koutarou moved his hand down, tracing his fingers over the edges of where Akaashi’s body began to change. Goosebumps rose along his arms at the unfamiliar—and arousing—sensation. “Which one will you give me?” The impish glint in his eye told Akaashi he knew exactly what he was making him feel.

“Uhm.” Akaashi’s tongue felt heavy—Koutarou’s fingers slid gently down, catching on the edges of some of his scales, and he would turn his fingers down to graze his nails among them. “Whichever you—want.” He was mortified when his own tail flipped up at the end—like a cat. It was involuntary. He covered his face with his hands and Koutarou let out a bark of a laugh as he kissed his shoulder.

Koutarou dappled kisses up to his cheek and traced his nose over the line of his jaw. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so shy.”

It was true. Akaashi wasn’t a very shy person and didn’t usually show embarrassment easily. “Well, this is all new to me! It’s strange.”

“I like it,” Koutarou kissed the edge of his mouth. “I like this side of you just as much as I like your lewd side, too.”

“God, stop. I can’t think about that in daylight.”

Koutarou laughed again. “Want to turn over so I can get one from your butt?” He was messing with Akaashi, teasing him because he hadn’t had much to tease him about and now that he could he would be relentless.

“Shut up, no!” Akaashi batted at his hand where he was half-heartedly attempting to turn Akaashi on his side. “Our first soul swapping stuff isn’t going to be an ass scale!”

“Oh, come on, it’s cute—“

Akaashi shoved his hands in Koutarou’s face now. “I said no!” He knew his face was as red as a tomato.

“Alright, alright,” Koutarou used his free hand to grab Akaashi’s and push them down. He touched his finger to a particular scale on his hip—it was the color of the waves breaking against the shore, pale blue and light. “This one, then?”

“Sure. Yes. Any one you want. How do I—” He reached down, poking at the one that Koutarou had selected. “Do I just pull it? Will it hurt?”

“Not at all.”

Akaashi pressed a thumb to it, and just like the interlocking panels of the box he made, the scale slid out and into his hand. He was pleased, and Koutarou held his hand out and Akaashi set it in his palm. “How does it… work?”

“Give me your hand,” Koutarou said, and closed his fingers over the scale, then wrapped Akaashi’s fingers around his fist. “So, just like with everything else, you have to put your heart into this.” He pushed their intertwined hands against his chest, just over his heart. _You have to be sure of it,_ he said internally. _Sure of our lives together. Can you do that?_

 _Yes,_ Akaashi answered him. He spread his fingers and remembered the feel of warmth in his palm. He could imagine what their lives would be like, moving seamlessly from land to sea. He knew they could spend eons of time together, doing anything and everything or nothing at all—but it would all be wonderful. _I can’t imagine my life without you, Kou. I want us to build our lives together._

Koutarou ducked his head a little, but the smile on it was as wide as ever. _Both of them. I want to meet your friends, I want you to meet mine and my family. I want us to have two places we call home._ He let out a small gasp as the scale in their hands heated and dissolved, melting into his skin. Akaashi followed the path of gold under his skin all the way down until it pushed into a place where his skin met the scales.

“Ohh,” Akaashi breathed, laughing a little. “That’s so cool.”

Koutarou smiled at him, tracing his new addition. “I could feel it, too. Can you?”

Akaashi _could_ sense something different—something new. Familiar. It was like a part of him that had always been there, just under the surface. It was the feeling of calm and happiness he had when he came to the ocean, the calling he’d always felt each morning as he sat on his balcony. _It’s you_ , Akaashi was glad he didn’t have to use his words to speak because his throat was tight with emotions. He reached up and took Koutarou’s face in his hands, pulling him down for a kiss. _It’s always been you._

Koutarou pulled him close, and they wrapped themselves around each other, reveling in the full weight of what they now shared. What they’d always shared. Even though he’d given away a piece of his body, of his soul, of his heart, Akaashi had never felt more whole.

He lifted his face and kissed Koutarou softly, lingering, remembering the taste of his lips. “Take me home,” he whispered against his lips.

“Which one?” Koutarou smiled, running his fingers over Akaashi’s back, up his spine and over his shoulders.

“Both.” Akaashi kissed him again. “We’ll make both places our home.”

Koutarou nodded, taking a long moment to kiss him again before pulling away and sliding himself off the rock and into the ocean. He held his hand out for Akaashi to help him down, then they plunged into the waves, heading down to the depths. Akaashi could see how happy this made Koutarou, but he could also feel it in his own breast, echoed and magnified by his own happiness.

Two lives, he thought. I’m so lucky to have him for both of them.

Koutarou looked back at him and squeezed his hand as if he’d heard. Maybe he had, or maybe he had felt it. Or maybe he just felt the exact same way.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it :)


End file.
